“A great adventure. So outrageous and so real, one is left speechless.” —Chicago Sun Times In Walker Percy’s future America, the country is on the brink of disaster. With citizens violently polarized along racial, political, and social lines, and a fifteen-year war still raging abroad, America is crumbling quickly into ruin. The country’s one remaining hope is Dr. Thomas More, whose “lapsometer” is capable of diagnosing the spiritual afflictions — anxiety, depression, alienation — driving everyone’s destructive and disastrous behavior. But such a potent machine has its pitfalls. As Dr. More soon learns, in the wrong hands, the powerful lapsometer could lead to open warfare, pushing America into anarchy at full-speed

Percy’s stirring sequel to Love in the Ruins follows Tom More’s redemptive mission to cure the mysterious ailment afflicting the residents of his hometown. Dr. Tom More returns to his parish in Louisiana determined to live a simpler life. Fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, he wants nothing more than to live “a small life.” But when everyone in town begins acting strangely — from losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentences — More, with help from his cousin Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to reveal what and who is responsible. Their investigation leads them to the highest seats of power, where they discover that a government conspiracy is poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity