Joseph Stoyanovich writes children's books. From the adventures of Baxter Bear and Wally Warthog, he fashions clever morality tales with happy endings that delight his audience, but fill their creator with dismay. For Joseph Stoyanovich is a troubled man whose emptiness is hidden behind a number of elaborate facades.

Among his friends, he is the worldly, wise, and weary cynic; yet to the family of his half brother, Will, he is the indulgent, mild-mannered uncle. Burdened with secret guilt over the death, many years earlier, of a younger brother, and over the marital breakup of his political-activist parents, Joseph lives his life most acutely in the margins, specifically those of his own children's books—into which he scribbles obscenities in a bizarre ritualistic purging.

Then he meets Felice Kraipolous, a tough little 13-year-old who carries her own troubled secrets, and whom he longs to help; through her, Joseph sees a chance for his own redemption. And yet, at the same time, Joseph's ambiguous feelings toward this contemporary Lolita threaten his carefully constructed life and career.