"In the Marshall Islands, an island-nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that was once a testing ground for nuclear bombs, American engineers and programmers are making and testing missiles while their "hosts," the indigenous Marshallese, sweep their streets and clean their houses. It's 2004, the Iraq war is heating up, and 9/11 is fresh in everyone's minds. Following four interconnected story lines-the meltdown of a burned-out cultural liaison...

Tells the story of boxer Willard Bean, called with his wife Rebecca Bean to be missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Palmyra, New York, in 1915, where he must confront the great hostility of the inhabitants.