The Great Work in the United States of America covers the life and times of a man or being called “Tk,” the founder, often despite himself, of a new religion which contains not a speck of Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Confucian, Sikh, Bahai’I, Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, or Christian Scientist belief but is a successor to Spiritualism and a precursor of the New Age. It is also his confession to being a failure and a fraud, which becomes a part of his religion. Set mostly in 1890s Chicago, but also in Arkansas, Colorado, Las Vegas and the “Summer Land,” the book’s characters also include Tk’s beloved and brilliant assistant, Mrs. Florence Huntley -- an opium addict who was married to three men, none named Huntley -- aldermen Hinky Dink Kenna and Bathhouse John Coughlin, H.H. Holmes the mass murderer, “Tiger Balm” Wald, and a creature called the “Dream Child.” These materials are historical, serious, and eccentric, although they also can be viewed as one damn story after another.