Set in the 20th century in Three Rivers, Connecticut, Dominick's brother Thomas suffers from paranoidschizophrenia . With medication, he is able to work in a coffee shop normally, but the condition flares up from time to time. Thomas, thinking he could make a defiance sacrifice to stop the war in the Middle East, severed his right hand in a public library. Dominick sees through his intentions not to take his hand back, freeing him on his behalf from a repressed hospital that treats dangerously mentally ill patients.
Although Dominick is mentally normal, his life has also suffered all kinds of heavy losses. His only child with his beautiful wife was due to sudden infant death syndrome; after the death of SIDS, the marriage also fell apart, he also had an ongoing hostile stance with his stepfather, and also displayed symptoms of post‐traumatic stress disorder . For Thomas' benefit and his own consideration, Dominick contacted an Indian psychologist, Dr. Rubina Patel, who helped him analyze Thomas' condition, as well as the family's current situation and a series of coping strategies.
During the treatment, Dominick secretly heard that there would be some sexual assault incidents in the hospital, so he helped to expose the perpetrators, and at the same time helped Thomas escape. Thomas then committed suicide, after which Dominick explored the identity of the biological father, a mixed-race African-American and Native American, and the secret mother shared with Thomas, but did not tell him. During this time, Dominick read the autobiography of his grandfather Domenico Tempesta, who was born in Sicily, Italy, which details the inheritance of the two brothers. He also discovers that his live-in girlfriend, Joy, is secretly dating another man, her bisexual uncle, whom Joy invites to watch her have sex with Dominick. Joy contracted AIDS from having sex with her uncle, and she begged Dominick to help take care of the children if she died. Dominick resisted at first, but when he found out that he had reunited with his ex-wife Dessa, they remarried and adopted Joy's daughter. Dominick faced countless blows, failures, and regrets in his life, and deeply explored the meaning of existence as a human being.
