[1] The novel describes Prentice McHoan's preoccupation with death, sex, his relationship with his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, a missing uncle, cars, alcohol and other intoxicants, and God, against the background of the Scottish landscape.

[2] This Bildungsroman is set in the fictional Argyll town of Gallanach, the real village of Lochgair, and in Glasgow, where the adult Prentice McHoan lives.

Prentice's uncle Rory disappeared eight years previously while writing a book called The Crow Road.

A parallel plot is Prentice's gradual transition from an adolescent fixation on one young woman to a more mature love for another.

The novel combines menace (it contains an account of a "perfect murder") and dark humour (note the opening sentence: "It was the day my grandmother exploded.")