Brendan Martin is an American-born loner raised in Ireland by his silent, embittered mother before escaping back to New York, where he lives and works each day in blissful isolation in the crowded city. Brendan spends his days happily labouring on building sites and his evenings drinking alone in bars and hooking up with a constant stream of one-night stands.

Following a second DUI, Brendan's peaceful and predictable life ends abruptly and he is forced to go to live in the town of Dover, New Jersey, with his overbearing uncle. There he forms an unlikely friendship with his meek, downtrodden cousin Eileen.

Forced into completing his community service, he meets Jonathan Doe, an intriguing man living in a local homeless shelter whose amazing stories of a happy childhood in the Appalachian Mountains captivate him. Within weeks of his arrival in Dover, Brendan loses himself in the strange man's incredible stories.

Fascinated by the fact that Jonathan Doe can no longer remember exactly where he is from, Brendan becomes obsessed with helping his new friend find his way back to the kind of home he himself has always dreamed of.

But is Jonathan's past real or are his memories the product of a deeply troubled mind? The closer Brendan gets to the truth, the more he realises that all is not what it seems with Jonathan Doe.