The novel opens in 1951 when Reuben Land is born with faulty lungs; it is his father, Jeremiah, who miraculously and heroically saves his life.

Jeremiah is an extremely religious single father to three children: Davy, the oldest, Reuben, the middle child, and the youngest and only daughter, Swede.

After this, the Lands go on a hunting trip at Jeremiah's old friend August's house, at which Davy avoids his father and Reuben attempts to shoot a gun.

Meanwhile, the police and a federal investigator named Andreeson press the Lands for information and encourage them to turn Davy in if he makes contact, but Jeremiah refuses to cooperate.

Furthermore, Jeremiah, based entirely on faith that he will find his son, decides to leave the house in Roofing and pursue Davy in a new Airstream trailer that he inherited from the now dead Lurvy.

While they are resting in a small town in North Dakota, Andreeson approaches them from his nearby car, but Jeremiah rebukes everything the "fed" has to say.

A woman named Roxanna Cawley runs it, and she invites them to stay in her home and wait out the incoming snowstorm.

Andreeson, hot on the case, goes missing during a snowstorm, and Reuben theorizes that Waltzer lured the federal agent away from the nearby town to kill him.

As the commotion continues, Reuben describes a beautiful meadow where he and Jeremiah meet, presumably heaven, with his dad laughing and then drifting away in a river.

Swede, with her flair for drama and love of literature, became a famous writer, Davy escaped to Canada, and Reuben happily married Sara.