It's Saturday, October 27, 1962, the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Two children, Ralph and his little sister Lou are searching for empty bottles in a vacant lot when they discover a rock, which to them, at least looks quite a lot like Jesus. Ralph immediately declares it possible Holy Object. In addition, since his fondest wish is to be a boy-in-a-story, he earnestly places himself and Lounow, his sidekick, in a tale featuring the sacred rock as the key to nothing less than saving the world from nuclear annihilation. However, there is another boy, Toby, older, shrewder, and quite a bit larger, who has very different plans for the rock, intending to use it as a lucrative sideshow exhibit, complete with fliers: Is it Jesus? Or just a rock? You decide! Hovering over the children and their small-scale war is the general anxiety and dread attending the most perilous moment in our history. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Manderino's The H-bomb and the Jesus Rock provides a unique, children's-eye view of that near-Armageddon.
