In A How Pretty Town, the protagonist is an active octogenarian who likes to walk the streets of his hometown of Edmonds, Washington. He is a privileged white man, a competitor still trying to prove himself, a rationalist opposed to what he regards as magical thinking, and a man trying to make sense of, and come to terms with, his life. He has no wish to celebrate his eightieth birthday by skydiving or riding a camel. In the days that remain to him he wants to post, on his interactive blog and on Twitter—platforms on which he is followed, he imagines, by a hundred or so vigilants—an inventory of his mind and his town. And to win a gold medal in softball at the Huntsman Senior World Games in St. George, Utah.

Having lived all his life in Edmonds, the old man traces the town's metamorphosis and delineates the ongoing struggle between the progressive and conservative forces trying to define its soul. The story is a compelling metafiction that comments upon itself at times, employs parody and pastiche, and plays with language.