William Kotzwinkle

After being sold at the family's yard sale, Walter is put to use blowing up balloons for a clown who is bent on robbing banks, but he escapes and becomes a hero.

The gentle extraterrestrial's return to his home planet discloses that he has fallen out of favor with his colleagues, who try to prevent his journey to Earth to provide spiritual guidance for his young friend Elliott.

"Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. Since killing somebody with a single punch is not a needed talent in a monastery, he spends his time praying, meditating, and taking his anger management medicine. But his meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women...

"Coalville is on fire--from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that's why the town is so corrupt. Now that he's a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again--hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he's on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy's past,...

After being sold at the family's yard sale, Walter is put to use blowing up balloons for a clown who is bent on robbing banks.