The young narrator lives in a lower class suburban Oregon neighborhood and collects beer bottles or does favors for neighbors to earn money.

His waitress mother doesn't get tips anymore, he is severely bullied at school, and they are forced to move to another town where the event is not known.

The book ends with a return to an observation of two obese people fishing in a temporarily set up "living room" by the pond.

Brautigan had shot and slightly injured a friend during a duck hunt in Fern Ridge.

At around the same time, the 14-year-old son of a well-known attorney in the Eugene area was shot and killed, also in a hunting accident.