Having spent most of his life medicated, electroshocked, and institutionalized, Jerome Coe finds himself homeless on the coldest night of the century-and so, with nowhere else to go, he accepts a ride out of New England from an old love's ex-girlfriend. It doesn't quite work out, but he makes it to New Orleans, and a new life--work, friends, and only the occasional psychotic break. What follows involves his last two chances to find real happiness (one's from Ecuador, one sells cigarettes), the old vicious enemies that may prevent him from obtaining it, and a cast of Crescent City denizens that makes for one of the most vivid ensembles since Toole's Confederacy.