One morning in the late summer of 1930 the proprietor and several guests at the Union Hotel at Crestcrego, Texas, were annoyed to discover Biblical texts freshly written across the blotter on the public writing-desk. George Marvin Brush is a travelling textbook salesman and fervent religious convert, determined to lead the godless to a better life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois and into the soul of 1930s America.