A plaster Virgin, conventionally set in a church Nativity scene, goes missing night after night with strange community consequences. The mysterious governess Miss Savage wreaks her weird and terrible revenge decades after she has been dismissed. Emmett Wells narrates a story of sex and violence, with no sex and no violence. Uniting many of these wayward pieces is the fictional desert town of St. Elmo, California, a place perhaps best described as "east of L.A. and west of the rest of the world".

Contents:

• Lavee, Lagair, Lamore, Lamaird
• How Max Perkins Learned to Edit
• Right-Hand Man
• A Brief Inquiry Into the Origins of St. Elmo, California
• Little Women
• Cromwell's Castle
• The Delinquent Virgin
• Moby-Jack
• Change at Empoli