<P> Mott spends the next year and a half in prison, represented by a single, one - paragraph letter from Mott to Sandra, in which he describes prison as comparable to working for a major corporation, except "here they don't let you out at night ." </P> <P> Released early from prison for good behavior, Mott, now addicted to tranquilizer pills ("Miltowns", also known as Meprobamate) returns to New York . He wanders around the city, finding that his family's former apartment has become a small brothel, and visiting Pappas, who now works for the Reverend Gurrey . Pappas has gotten Gurrey to back his scheme of a "Christian Aeronautical Mission" which involves using hot air balloons to drop Bibles behind the Iron Curtain . Ulla is also present, and after sleeping with Gurrey, tries to induce Mott to murder her by making anti-Semitic remarks and (falsely) telling him that she was a guard at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, but he does not . </P> <P> Mott accompanies his friend Leroy Parker on a road trip through the southern U.S., where, as a black man and a white man travelling together, they repeatedly experience racist harassment . The two separate and Leroy proceeds to Mexico, while Mott joins Sandra's family at their vacation home in Palm Beach . Both of Sandra's parents are present, though they have long been divorced, as is Reverend Gurrey . While Ethel, Sandra's mother, intensely dislikes Mott, he endears himself to her father, Spencer, by accidentally shooting Gurrey with birdshot at the Pattersons' gun club . </P> <P> Mott reluctantly accepts a job in Spencer's chain of department stores, and asks Sandra to marry him . Mott dislikes the work but carries on with help from alcohol and tranquilizers . Pappas, too, discourages Mott from marrying Sandra, fearing that Mott will gain influence over Gurrey . Mott is invited to dinner with Sandra, Ethel, and Gurrey, where the latter two attempt to convert him to Christianity, insisting that they will prevent his marriage to Sandra if he does not . Mott then facetiously attempts to convert them to Judaism, and, finally angered as Gurrey begins to say grace, begins to recite a Hebrew prayer, realizing that "I had arrived as an atheist, but they had made me a Jew ." </P>

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