Born unto a father steeped in violence, the fat kid grows up tortured for his ever-expanding girth. As a young man, the fat kid tends bar where his friends and coworkers muddle about the drinkers, including the fat kid's own daddy. They are all subject to the influence of a mysterious blond-haired and black-garbed stranger who comes and goes, known only as the Man. Unbeknownst to all save the fat kid's daddy-who migrated across the vast country with the Man, experiencing savage murder, near-starvation, and cannibalism-the fat kid and his friends' fates are sealed. In alternating narratives from the perspectives of the fat kid and his daddy, the story takes place in a vast country full of great plains and towering rocky mountains, dusty deserts and shimmering lakes, a landscape beautifully at odds with the horror in the lives of those who live upon it.