A man obsessed with the moral decay of modern society adopts the persona of a 17th-century Puritan to critique the present through the lens of the past. John Wheelwright, who styles himself as "Wright," attempts to reconcile his fixation on colonial history and the prophecies of Cotton Mather with his crumbling domestic life. His wife, Hetty, remains detached from his intellectual pursuits, focusing instead on her work with autistic twins, which serves as a grounding counterpoint to Wright's abstract moralizing. The narrative oscillates between historical reenactment and contemporary reality, utilizing a complex, multi-layered structure that forces the reader to navigate the protagonist's shifting identity and his increasingly frantic attempts to impose order on a chaotic world.

Critical reception of this work highlights the tension between the author's technical skill and the narrative's structural density. Reviewers have noted that the heavy reliance on didactic moralizing and lengthy literary quotations often obscures the emotional core of the story. While the ambition of the experimental framework is acknowledged, the consensus suggests that the protagonist's relentless outrage creates a barrier for the reader. The novel is frequently characterized as an intellectual exercise that struggles to balance its historical research with the demands of a compelling narrative arc. Consequently, the work is often viewed as a challenging, if uneven, exploration of American identity and historical continuity.