Content Warning: This section contains references to suicide, rape, incest, and eugenics.

Joe Allston, the novel’s protagonist and narrator, detects signs of a coming storm. He has lived in Northern California for eight years and can tell from the wind, clouds, and behavior of the many birds that nest on his property that a front is on its way from the Pacific. Watching the scattering birds, he reflects that the bush tits are his favorites, possibly because their “sociability” reminds him of how he imagined his retirement would be. In reality, his declining years following his move from the East Coast have been far from serene.

His wife, Ruth, has urged him to organize the many papers, letters, and files amassed during his career as a literary agent to occupy himself and preserve a sort of legacy. Upon first retiring, he thought he might use them to write a “name-dropping” memoir about his role in steering other authors to success and fame, but he has since abandoned even this ambition. In his youth, he aspired to be a writer but chose the path of least resistance: “a talent broker” rather than “a broke talent” (4).