Joe is an American in the strange land of Turkmenistan who finds a good friend in Azat, a Turkmen dreamer whose optimism knows no bounds. With tales of doomed desert cab rides, nights of endless vodka shots, unlikely Turkmen business schemes and secret girlfriends, Lonergan captures not only the bizarreness of living in a country where the president launches copies of his poetry books into space and renames the days of the week, but also reveals the hope in seemingly hopeless situations.