After graduating from grad school at Yale in his home state of Connecticut, David, not knowing what to do and not wanting to go home in having an issue with his mother, decides to head west with his "girlfriend" Jennifer to get a manual labor job picking apples in Oregon, Jennifer who, at the last minute, decides instead to follow him shortly after he takes the bus cross country.
Although seeing himself as an intellectual, David may or may not be aware of just how lost he is emotionally. In Oregon, he tries to distance himself from everyone he meets in giving them a false name - Samuel - yet he craves human connection lamenting whenever those connections don't happen.
Because of Jennifer, David decides to extend his stay in Oregon as he moves from situation to situation out of circumstance. As he tries to make those human connections in navigating this part of his life, his encounters with two people arguably expose his life for what it is: Brian, nicknamed Curly, a forklift operator at an apple processing plant; and Jon, a war vet, recovering alcoholic, stone mason (who is making clocks out of jade in the shape of a map of Oregon to sell at an upcoming craft fair), and born again Christian, which potentially places him at odds with avowed atheist David.