Set in late 20th-century New York City, Doctorow's capacious and very postmodern novel begins when a brass crucifix is stolen from St. Timothy's church on the Lower East Side. The pastor, Father Pemberton, is in the midst of a spiritual crisis, and as he searches for the cross through a lyrically described New York City, he encounters a group of progressive Jews, including a rabbi named Sarah whose father's account of his Holocaust experiences forms part of the spine of the novel. Gradually, Father Pemberton begins to veer away from Christianity and become obsessed with Jewish issues, particularly the Holocaust. The story is framed by the diary kept by Father Pemberton's novelist friend, who is writing about the priest, and is narrated by a wide variety of voices and characters, including Frank Sinatra. Defending the seeming chaos of the novel, Doctorow said, in a New York Times interview, What I found here was this book mimics the rhythm of the mind as we have it today, he said. We're all hopping around buzzing from information. The whole culture is full of that. If I write a book that gets its tension from discontinuities, I've found a template for the way we're thinking.
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