As a novelist, Denis Johnson is renowned for his portraits of the dispossessed lurking at the fringes of American life. In this collection of 11 essays written over 20 years, he looks at how groups of various dispossessed people came to form a new, often threatening identity. Johnson travels through war-ravaged Liberia in murderously unpredictable company, joins a Bikers for Jesus rally in Texas, and hangs out with local militia groups who hate Jews, Blacks and taxes. He finds true believers, whether it be in God, the goverment, guns or all three, and feels the depth of their conviction by travelling with them to places where horror and beauty exist side by side.