Welcome to Hope: Population 1001, three bars, a butcher's shop, a liquor store, and "Edgar's Bait, Tackle and Taxidermy." Paul rolls into Hope late at night on his thirtieth birthday, on the lam from his wife and a surprise party he has known about for weeks. He has come to Hope to escape his failing marriage and the distractions of the Big City. He'd also like to get some serious work done on his second novel, but finds the diversions of Hope no less seductive than those he has fled.

First, there is the legendary fish, Ol' Mossback. Purportedly two-hundred years old and an oracle to boot; Paul could hardly pass up the chance to land such a fish. Then there is the town's founder, an eccentric religious leader with a voracious sexual appetite (forever immortalized in the town square in a discrete state of excitement). And, of course, there are the habitués of Paul's favorite bar, The Willing Mind: Jonathon Whitecrow, an Indian with an Oxford accent; Mona, the libertine barkeep and captain of the women's baseball team; Big Bernie and his talking stomach, Little Bernie; and the two Kims.

Hope is soon the center of Paul's life, and he abandons his work in progress (inching along at the remarkable rate of one paragraph a day) in the attempt to unravel the complex mysteries of Hope. In the process Paul becomes a member of the "Oh Oh" chorus and is finally able to answer affirmatively the question, "talked with Ol' Mossback lately?"