Midway through his summer vacation, eight year-old Huddie Blaylock suddenly realizes the reason for his recent, nagging paranoia: his normal, if slightly dysfunctional family has been replaced by imposters.

Possessing the inflexible determination of the young and/or mentally ill, he embarks on a decade-long, cross-country search for the truth that will carry him through second-rate amusement parks, nightmarish nursing homes, 24-hour adult novelty shops and the wilds of Midwestern suburbia.