Sole De Gasinis drowns his grief in wine and buries his hatred of his body in twisted sculptures. When, one drunken night on the beach, God orders him to rebuild his village's church, he knows he wasn't chosen for his piety.Instead, he and God make a deal. If Sole rebuilds the church, God will give him the body of a man.As Sole works in a frenzy for salvation, lifelong friendships decay, a village united to tear down its church fractures into pariahs and zealots, and power and grief reshape the prophet into a tyrant. Grief for a boy he fell in love with ten years ago, who claimed to be a virgin birth, who died in agony in the church crypt when the God inside him wanted out--and whose monstrous remnant Sole must commune with for every piece of his prize.

Jamie Fugate is a physician taught by his militant father. Amon Jessop is a veterinary radiologist too soft-hearted for Jamie’s patience. To the behemoth which crash-lands in a wheat field between their Oklahoman towns during a storm—six wings and a senseless tangle of human body parts—they’re the only science for miles.The two agree that they’re studying God, but they agree on nothing else. Amon sees God in the wings, barely contained by a communal tornado shelter. Jamie sees God in the body, or—as he learns when Amon’s fluoroscope reveals two human skeletons entwined in an embrace—the bodies. Extracting the second head for examination is his first cut. Soon, the study is a vivisection.The veterinarian is hiding a shame which made him flee the city he trained in, and the physician is hiding a bloodlust his bone saw can’t reach. When the behemoth proves pestilential, and their thirst for knowledge turns into a thirst for each other, a new monster is born, more volatile by far than the one on their table.