A Louisiana farmer sees the images of Christ appear on the freezer door and questions the meaning of faith. In a Maine resort town, Miss Langevin, a spinster who could write a book on disappointment, now gets a chance to help another woman escape it. And in the title story, a science teacher's modest dreams and painful memories erode his existence like water entering stone.

As an observer of secrets in these and other offbeat lives, John Dufresne crisscrosses the eastern United States like a contemporary Dos Passos, hearing familiar voices, letting them meander through his unique imagination, then spinning them out in stories rich with irony, braced by melancholy, and based on truth.