On the first day of spring in the Inland Empire of Southern California, our narrator Joe inadvertently rams his car into Ronnie, a homeless man riding a bicycle. The bike is crushed, aluminum cans are scattered, but a new relationship is formed. Joe encounters Ronnie and his dog Henry at the local dog park, at their campsite by the Santa Ana River, and in other, unexpected locations.
Seemingly content working in a caf and leading an aimless life, Joe is twenty-eight and has started writing prose poems and short stories. He walks the streets at night, rides buses to nowhere in particular, swims in the ocean on a whim-sometimes naked, sometimes fully clothed. He is dating Ashley, a transplant from the Midwest who shares his birthday and birthyear and is a poetry professor at a small Christian college. Joe talks to himself, he talks to God, he talks to the dog he acquires. He is in love with Ashley yet longs for his ex, Cora, too.
Reminiscent of John Fante's Ask the Dust, Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, and Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, this novel explores themes of solitude, companionship, and personal fulfillment. As the oppressive heat of summer creeps closer to the Inland Empire, Joe acts with a surprising ferocity that will leave him and those around him forever changed.