A distraught Davis Banks arrives home for his mothers funeral. Davis teaches poetry at a small college. He loves words but not himself. His father had died some years before, and now Davis discovers a lot of little things in his mothers house that dont seem right.Where are the keys to her car? In fact, he realizes he doesnt even know how or where she died. That night he visits his mothers gravesite, dug next to his fathers. Near the bottom he discovers a mans arm sticking out of the dirt where his fathers coffin is supposed to be. And when he finds out that his mother apparently died in a motel room with another man, hes confronted with a myriad of loose ends thrashing about in a quicksand of details. With a poets feel for language, Neal Bower tells a story whose twists intrigue the reader as much as they do Davis.