Where Heaven and Earth Meet: The Lives of Vishnu, told in 1904 by a Nebraska hardware store owner

One summer evening in 1904, two friends chatted on the porch of the hardware store in the tiny city of Gorse Nebraska. One was August Altmann, owner of the store and lay reader in the local chapel. He had never left Nebraska and had an indifferent education. His friend, Justus Fowler, was a Yale-educated attorney who had once studied Eastern Religions. But it was August who told Justus a story of the lives of the Hindu god Vishnu. While Justus was skeptical and sarcastic, other residents of...