Julie struggles with her messianic powers, the mind games of Satan, being hunted by fundamentalists, and the silence of her mother, God.

Murray is a Jewish hermit pushing fifty, living alone in a lighthouse in Atlantic City, writing a book about human nature based on evidence gleaned from a job at the local Photomat.

Well-schooled in the appropriate use of her messianic powers (she can breathe underwater, restore life to dead animals, and converse with a talking sponge named Amanda) by her only visible parent (at least as well as Murray can manage), Julie reaches adulthood and explores life, death, Hell and the universe on the East Coast of the modern United States.

She is ten years old when she meets her "mother's oldest friend", Mr. Wyvern; the plot thereafter is derived from the intervention of family, fun in the Absecon Inlet, the guiding phantom eye of an enemy, Pastor Billy Milk, his fundamentalist sheep roving Atlantic City with juice jugs of milk, and the problems posed by her extra gifts.

The overarching story of the book is that of a satirical theodicy, questioning why human beings suffer from evil and pain, and exploring the ingenuity with which we combat those conditions.