"Tells the story of Hazel Motes of Eastrod, Tennessee. After release from the army at twenty-two, he comes to a Southern city where he falls under the spell of Asa Hawks, a "blind" street preacher who is led around by his degenerate daughter, Sabbath Lily Hawks, age fifteen. In his struggle to outpreach and outfox Asa Hawks, Hazel founds his own religion, "The Church Without Christ", and announces his mission: "I'm member and preacher to that church where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way". It is Enoch Emery, a boy with "wise blood, like his daddy", who discovers for Hazel a manger-child in a building labeled Mvsevm. "--Page 4 of cover.