Content Warning: This section reflects the book’s depictions of or references to alcohol addiction, death by suicide, child violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and police violence. The book also contains offensive language that is biased against gay people, Asians, unhoused people, and people with disabilities.

In 2021, a journalist named Ruth Crawford goes to Maine to write a profile on two small-town friends who became successful artists in their middle age: Laird Carmody, a writer, and David “Butch” LaVerdiere, a painter who passed away in 2019. Ruth requests an interview with Laird through his son, Mark. Laird declines, but the request makes Mark curious about Laird and Butch’s coinciding success.

Ruth interviews relevant figures in the Carmodys’ hometown of Harlow to build her profile. Dissatisfied with their answers, Ruth approaches Mark at a café to talk off the record. She shares what she learned about Laird and Butch, which speaks to their character but doesn’t explain the secret of their sudden midlife success.

Mark doesn’t tell her that while he was attending a university in 1978, he received a call from his mother, who was alarmed about Laird and Butch having experienced something strange on a hunting trip. Soon after this, they broke out into successful respective careers.