Whatever odds against them, they make their way to an affluent Colorado ski town, where Mason finds himself courting a young woman who used to pose for Internet porn sites. His partner Elias, meanwhile, becomes the live-in guru of a guilt-ridden billionaire with chronic irritable bowel syndrome - getting for both he and Mason comfortable digs at the family compound that serves as a nice base of operations as they continue to proselytically prosper in this easy-pickin’s town of spiritual too-much-time-and-money hunger.
Still, you take the crap with the cream as mounting pressures lead to the brink of divine collapse. Indeed, writes Kirn about the escalating pace of time and bad news, “Life was suddenly after suddenly - so many suddenlys in quick succession that people wrote made-up tales to stop their onslaught, to rest in the illusion of some smooth flow.” Back in Montana, the Apostles are facing schism and extinction as their beloved leader, the Seeress, lays dying. Mason starts seeing chinks in his personal armor and a need to salvage professional obligations as missionary mayhem sets in. A clash with a competing “church” — it even has a cooler name: AlpenCross — is ratcheted up, and an acrimonious fight with Elias threatens their partnership and all that they’ve worked for. The defecation really hits the oscillation, though, when they get buffaloed in a bison hunt.
It would be about at this point — or way past — that our adopted Bing and Bob should’ve hit the picaresque road again, whether or not they see their futures as escapist fare or obligated perseverance, together or apart. In a foiled mission to see a bigger America than they’ve — than we’ve — seen so far, I can’t help but feel initially let down by Kirn’s titular and narrative promise. There were many times that — before they frustratingly dithered away their chances — the main characters broached the issue of packing up and moving on as originally intended, and not just when they were in a jam.
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