The narrative opens at an academic cocktail party, with all the pretension that such a party traditionally entails. In his wandering away from the action, Daniel, the narrator, comes across a copy of Wonders and Tales, a book that had meant much to him as a child, at least in part because his father had forbidden him to read it. The book becomes both a catalyst for Daniel's memory and an inspiration for his own struggles as a novelist trying to complete a manuscript. Beachy-Quick periodically returns us to Daniel's life as an academic, with his various literary loves (especially Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson). In one splendid episode, Daniel substitutes for an indisposed friend and teaches a class on its final day of discussing Moby-Dick. Daniel shows himself to be, like Ahab, obsessed, though Daniel's obsession is with the beauty and power of the novel.