Gawd Bless Amurica

"But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asks Candide. "To drive us mad," replies Martin. Voltaire was an amusing and sarcastic guy. If his was the Age of Enlightenment, we live in the Age of Schizophrenia. We are all at once going stark raving mad and attaining the deepest levels of spiritual fulfillment. Insanity and Nirvana all in the same breath. At times it's hard to grasp and enough to make us gasp. But see now the hero of Gawd Bless Amurica, America Augustus Mirth. August, he prefers. He's a throwback to the Sixties, to the Age of Aquarius, to cross country trips in an old VW microbus and a fat bag of weed. But before his hippie sojourn, he played middle linebacker for Middlebury and fought with the Marines in the jungles of Vietnam. Three wives, a dozen kids all named after the original thirteen colonies, August is a chatty but impenetrable guy, a complex American male. Master automotive mechanic Eddie Rucker has been thoroughly disenfranchised in the Age of Schizophrenia. He's lost and lonely as hell and recently purchased a handgun in the Live Free or Die State. Eddie knows his wife is boffing the pastor. Eddie knows his job at Jiffy Lube is a lousy, dead-end, loser's job. Eddie knows he's a crappy son, husband, and father. And by God for all these reasons and many more old Ed is thoroughly ticked off. He's also depressed and strung out on booze, painkillers, and worry, but Ed can't digest all these marvels of the modern world so he settles on anger. Rage. Vexation. And the oh so sweet possibility of revenge. Reverend Sandy Miles has been having sex with Ed's wife. He can't help himself. He may be a Man of the Cloth but he is wholly a Man of the Flesh. He has lost interest in his wife and in God. The whole notion of God has started to bore and annoy Sandy. All that faith and sanctimony. Sure, he puts on a good show every Sunday morning, but the rest of the time he's lying and cheating and gambling and living a life of pure delightful sin. America Augustus Mirth, Edward Rucker, and Reverend Sanford Miles are on a collision course. Destiny, or perhaps free will, is about to bring together this trio of depleted American males at the First Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. What happens at that chapel, and in the days to follow up at the Mirth family farm in Middlebury, Vermont, will alter forever all three men's lives. And America, the country, may never be the same again.