In The Hanging God, James Matthew Wilson mines the landscape of contemporary American life for images to reflect its moral ravages. Raw in their affective power, Wilson's narratives avoid ambiguity in matters of faith without sacrificing complexity of feeling, compassion, and self-examination. Strippers, divorcees, corporate accountants move among dumpsters, barrooms, bedfellows, beer bottles, and Excel spreadsheets, while the poet examines our confused postmodern responses to these tragicomic figures: would I 'weep or smile' at their worldly losses?