The novel depicts the grisly, and occasionally surreal misadventures of a downsized schoolteacher, Pete Robinson, in a vaguely post-apocalyptic America.

We learn that Pete Robinson is an expert in the history of torture, with special emphasis on the Inquisition, and that he was formerly an elementary schoolteacher before the local school system was entirely defunded.

Pete's ambition to run for mayor after resurrecting the local educational system under his own administration—and the thwarting of this ambition—are major elements of the novel's plot.

Other elements of the plot include Pete's thwarted attempts to bury pieces of the former Mayor's body in Egyptological rituals, and his wife Meredith's growing detachment as she becomes more involved in ichthyomorphic trances in which she transforms herself into a coelacanth, or ancient fish.

The heart of Antrim's enterprise, the thing that allows him to make credible his wild surmises, is his keen insight into social and marital relations and his masterful linguistic skills.