The series revolves around a precipitating event: a young boy throws a snowball at another, hitting a pregnant woman instead, who goes into premature labor.
The tone and unconventional literary devices of metafiction have led some later critics to suggest the series was a precursor to what has been called "slipstream" fiction in the 21st century.
[1] Fifth Business is narrated by Dunstable (later Dunstan) Ramsay, who grows up in Deptford, a fictional town in southwestern Ontario, Canada.
The epistolary novel takes the form of a letter Ramsay writes to the headmaster of Colborne College after his retirement.
It sheds new light on many of the characters introduced in Fifth Business, including his father's friend Dunstan Ramsay, who happens to be in Switzerland recuperating from a heart attack.
He learns to conjure and, as an adult, takes the name of Magnus Eisengrim as he establishes a successful career as a noted magician.
Like several of the main characters in Davies' novels, Paul Dempster undergoes a series of symbolic rebirths, each of which is accompanied by a name change.
As related by Eisengrim: On December 28, 1908, Paul Dempster was born prematurely after his pregnant mother was hit in the head by a snowball thrown by Percy Boyd Staunton.
Traveling with the troupe under the assumed identity of Cass Fletcher, Paul endures a long period of continued psychological and physical abuse by Willard, but he also manages to learn the rudimentary skills of pick-pocketing, sleight of hand, and watch-repair.
Although penniless, uneducated, and psychologically wounded, Paul, finally rid of his sodomizing tormentor, is at last able to begin shaping his own life in whatever way he wishes.
After several years later, Paul makes his way to England, where, by a stroke of great luck, he becomes the stunt double for Sir John Tresize, a famous, aging English actor.