A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife.

In 1951, Marcus Messner, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with anti-Semitism, sexual repression, and the ongoing Korean War.

After an inspiring chance encounter with his idol, rookie journalist Jay Bahadur uproots his life and moves to Somalia looking for the story of a lifetime. Hooking up with a…