The story sprawls across Canada, a large part of Europe and the United States. The first half of the narration follows a young Canadian actor named Jack Burns through his youth as he travels with his mother in search of his father through the subculture of tattoo artists. Like the title character in The World According to Garp and Irving himself, Jack finds a talent for wrestling and an extended family that aids and hinders him through his trials as a young man coming of age, including his sexual awakening and abuse as an adolescent. The second half of the narrative sees Jack on the road to discovering the truth behind the misconceptions that his younger self had thought he understood.