Brittany Maize has lived a protected life with her roommate, the fundamentalist Christian, Luke Bibler. She works at a press, and escapes the redundancy of her life only in brief periods of sweet imagination. When Donnie Sobrhaj happens upon her he is drawn to her. Like all things Donnie desires, he pursues her with the full force of his will. The dark and mysterious Donnie takes her delicately by the hand, leading her softly into his dangerous world. She uncovers the harsh realities of Donnie s past, when his partner in crime, Jimmy Duel, tells of Donnie s childhood in New York s alleys, where Donnie scraped for food and taught himself with books found in the abandoned high-school he and his mother called home; until the day it was devoured by flames. Did Donnie take part in his own mother s death? Tension mounts when yet another of Donnie s bizarre comrades, Cahn C. Critic, appears on the scene. Brittany finds herself swept across the Arizona deserts as the reckless trio takes her deep into the wild wild West, where she finds herself tangled in a web of drug induced adventures escalating into murder and madness.