After his car flies off the road into Lake Superior, Midwestern moviehouse owner Virgil Wander is fortunate to survive, but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. In this novel by the author of Peace Like a River, Virgil begins to reclaim his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of Rune, a pipe-smoking, kite-flying stranger looking for his disappeared son; Nadine, the reserved, enchanting wife of the vanished man; Tom, a journalist and Virgil's oldest friend; and various members of the Pea family, who must confront tragedies of their own.