It concerns a man named Corky Withers, a shy, oddly tempered and highly principled magician and ventriloquist. It chronicles his childhood and adolescence, his deep love for a woman named Peggy Ann Snow, his descent into schizophrenia, his increasingly disturbing connection to his dummy Fats as an outlet of the more expressive parts of his personality (including murderous), and how all of these elements dovetail and reach a shattering climax during a weekend at Peggy's home in the Catskills. The novel is written changing time periods, locations, and point of view swiftly and leaving certain aspects of important events unknown for extended periods of time, especially concerning the identity of Fats the dummy for the early portion of the novel.
