John Tollefson leaves the American midwest for upstate New York to manage a radio station at a college for academically challenged children with financially gifted parents While in New York, John discovers the pleasures of a bachelor life, he has an idea for a restaurant, and falls in love with historian Alida Freeman In the mist of plenty, John feels he has no coherent life story unlike his chequered ancestors, with the only true magnificence in his life being Alida Folded into the romance is the chequered saga of his ancestors