Throughout the novel, Mike Muñoz, the novel’s 22-year-old protagonist, is searching for his true identity, seeking to escape poverty, and hoping to achieve financial success in a field he loves—landscaping. He is great at mowing lawns and pruning boxwood hedges, but he also likes to create topiary. In fact, one of his topiary creations is a mermaid with a penis, which he calls a “merman,” that he carved from a shrub on the small lot where he lives. He dreams of writing the “Great American Landscaping Novel.”

Mike shows empathy and loyalty toward others, even when they are difficult to deal with or have character traits that turn him off. He accepts his brotherly obligation to care for his brother Nate who has mental disabilities. When his mother asks him to look after Nate, he always accepts, even though his brother sometimes flies into rages and throws things when he doesn’t get his way. Mike also accepts his best friend Nick despite Nick’s homophobic and racist views: “I’m not defending Nick, exactly. It’s just that no matter what a narrow-minded dickhead he is, he’s family. All these years, I’ve no choice but to accept him, in spite of his bigotry and shallowness and willful ignorance” (96).