The book follows Edna Shinglebox, a neurotic and prudish girl under the thumb of her controlling parents, and Marsh Mellow, an eccentric and intelligent rebel trying to cope with issues surrounding his father.

Marsh, meanwhile, is an eccentric, socially-aware and darkly humorous boy who keeps a pet racoon (simply named "Raccoon") in his pocket at school and consistently challenges authority.

The teens are placed in a school "class" period with Mr. Meizner, a morbidly obese psychiatrist who means well but has trouble relating to the students due to his over-reliance on bizarre and novel psychological techniques.

According to a strange letter he slips her in class, his father, Peter "Paranoid Pete" Marsh is in a mental hospital in California and is set to be lobotomized soon against his will in an apparent government conspiracy.

Edna decides to visit a local "witch" and palm-reader, a middle-aged woman who wears revealing attire, keeps multiple pet dogs and is an apparent hoarder, for advice about the situation.

A drunken brawl breaks out at the party, and while the teens are all distracted by an injured Marsh and a group of bullies beating him up, a wax-dripping candelabra sets the house on fire.

The teens hide out in a cemetery where the grave of former American President John F. Kennedy is, and during this detour, they each compile a "hate list" of things they don't like.

Edna is finally able to get Marsh to overcome his fantasy and admit that his father is dead - struck by a bus in California after wandering out into the road drunk.

Kirkus Reviews wrote in 1976, "Compared with Judith Guest's recent Ordinary People... this is a broader, outside view of teenage crazies, splashed with caricature and pointed distortion.