. In the desert, you see, there is everything and nothing . It is God without men. . However, the Mojave is a place of strange power, and before Raj reappears inexplicably unharmed--but not unchanged--the fate of this young family will intersect with that of many others, echoing the stories of all those who have traveled before them. --Honore de Balzac, Une passion dans le desert, 1830 Jaz and Lisa Matharu are plunged into a surreal public hell after their son, Raj, vanishes during a family vacation in the California desert. Viscerally gripping and intellectually engaging, it is, above all, a heartfelt exploration of the search for pattern and meaning in a chaotic universe. Driven by the energy and cunning of Coyote, the mythic, shape-shifting trickster, Gods Without Men is full of big ideas, but centered on flesh-and-blood characters who converge at an odd, remote town in the shadow of a rock formation called the Pinnacles.