Tom DeDalus takes nothing for granted. He and his 10-year-old son David live on the outskirts of town, squatting in an abandoned building and working as odd-jobbers cutting grass and trimming lawns. Tom seeks to define a better way for David than he has had for himself as an abandoned and orphaned infant, without official documents to ground and prove his identity. The consequential uncertainty and lack of security disturb and frustrate Tom, not for his sake, but for David's. Tom's happiness and welfare hinge on his efforts to lead, direct, and make a way for David to have opportunities denied to him. David's education, success, and future opportunities embody the reason Tom pushes himself and struggles to find help and encouragement from good people along the way.

One advantage that David already enjoys, compared to Tom's experience, resides in Tom's ability and willingness to relate truthfully David's complete history. Tom never had the luxury of knowing his own history, the result of which inhibited him and constantly tamped down what little self-confidence Tom tried to manifest.
This journey for Tom and David begins in the late spring and lasts through the summer of 1948 in a small nondescript and remote town in mid-America that is fraught with both fatigue and resolute hope and enthusiasm after enduring nearly two decades of a global depression and war. Ultimately this journey will encompass the breadth of Missouri from St. Louis to Kansas City, as well as the breadth of the United States itself, from New York to San Francisco. For Tom, such a journey was unimaginable in 1948 when this story begins. Along the way Tom and David encounter scoundrels, fatuous social climbers, admirable people, accomplished people, talented performers, and people with abundant good humor.