The book opens at a Beatles concert in Pennsylvania in 1960-something and ends with a cross-country trip to the optimism of the second gold rush in California. Whether traveling in search of tiny rock shows and rare records, attending his best friend's funeral, skipping classes, getting dumped by his girlfriend, or hanging out with imaginary super-hero friends, each section builds on the others to move half-fact, half-fiction characters through the memory of the author via Mickey Lawrence, the book's narrator. While the linear framework is broken, the logic is found in the book's movement and motivation.