As a child, Didion learns from her grandmother that Grace Episcopal Cathedral—in the wealthy Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco will remain unfinished—but in 1964, James Albert Pike raises $3 million and finishes the church. Five years later, Pike and his wife rent a car from Avis and travel into the Middle East desert to live in the wilderness like Jesus. They have a map and two bottles of Coca-Cola. Within five days, Pike is dead.

Didion reads a biography about Pike, The Death and Life of Bishop Pike (1976) by William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne. She thinks of Pike as an exceptional literary character, like movie producer and aviator Howard Hughes. Pike was born in Kentucky, and his family had little money. His father died when he was two, and his mother made it her goal to help Pike succeed. He won baby contests in Oklahoma and attended colleges in California and then law school at Yale. Pike’s experiences in the East, his rocky romantic relationships, and his emphasis on winning remind Didion of characters from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous American novel The Great Gatsby (1925). Enthralled with California, Pike returned to the West Coast and became Bishop of California.