The Failed Life of a Mormon Missionary

A young man's hilarious quest for sex and God. In 1962, Jerry Wonder is a 19-year-old Mormon missionary who leaves South Dakota to save souls in New Zealand. But Elder Wonder is flawed. He is a compulsive masturbator, or in Mormon parlance, a "self-pollinator." Within its comic frame, the novel is revealing of the ways older men stifle and control young men.