Orrin Porter Rockwell Christianson's genealogy is illustrious and suspicious; his birth is murderous; his survival, miraculous. He grows up with a well-known Mormon Hymn playing constantly in his head, changing lyrics to suit the situation, to guide him, and to encourage him. When he is just seventeen, an angel rescues him from sure death in the desert, and after that, the lyrics of the Hymn focus on his assassinating Spiro Agnew. Orrin struggles to take control of his life--to make his own movie, as we used to say in the Seventies. He does not want to kill Agnew. He wants to marry his high...