Siggi is in prison during the post-war period and tasked to write an essay. He remembers that his father was supposed to ban his profession from a friend who was a painter and Siggi was supposed to help him but he rebelled.
The history of the United States from the 1950s to the '70s unfolds from the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, who yearns to be reunited with his childhood sweetheart.