Although The Origin of the Brunists is not as technically daring as The Universal Baseball Association (1968) or Gerald's Party (1986), Coover's irony is controlled and effective in inquiring into both the zeal with which the Brunists await the end of the world (which the Prologue indicates did not come off on the anticipated date, thus adding an important dimension to the book's fundamental irony in that the failure of this prophesy does not adversely affect the cult's growth) and the gestapo zeal with which the conservative faction in West Condon persecutes the Brunists.

The chief innovations of this text include the manipulation of the point of view and Coover's characteristic concerns with epistemology, or the degree to which we can trust the "reality" the fictionalist, or the world, presents to us.

The novel begins in medias res, with a "prologue" describing the Brunists' preparation for the end of the...