Hallelujah City

The last thing Scott Chambers expected to find on his doorstep in Aurora, Colorado, was his twenty-one-year-old daughter Mary. Recently exiled from a religious cult in Minnesota, Mary is carrying the child of the cult's leader and self-proclaimed messiah, Daniel Hawker. With the Dawn of the New Millennium scheduled for midnight, Mary claims she has been sent to convert her skeptical father. Yet, when the next day's headline in the Denver Post reads Just Another Judgment Day, relegating the Doomsday story to page four, Mary blames her weaknesses for the world that did not end. She announces she will return to Minnesota to accept full responsibility for Daniel Hawker's failed prophecy and prove that her beloved Teacher is not a fraud. Chambers, suspicious of his daughter's condition and none too pleased with the so-called messiah, insists on accompanying her. Meanwhile, author Adrian C. Hummel has been battling creditors, his agent, and his editor for two years. Living in motel-squalor on the outskirts of Trapper's Point, Minnesota, he seeks an inside track to Daniel Hawker. He is certain an exclusive interview is all he needs to launch him into notoriety, granting him the fortune that has eluded him. Mary Chambers might be his last chance to gain access to the mastermind of Hallelujah City, the cult's headquarters. These stories converge in a complex and tender tale of family dysfunction and redemption that explores what happens the day after the world was predicted to end.