After abandoning his Nebraska home, seventeen-year-old Wilson finds himself adrift in a Mississippi town where he becomes obsessed with the garden of the Miller family. Wilson secures employment as a gardener, but when he loses his own housing, he refuses to leave the property, choosing instead to inhabit the crawl space beneath the Millers' residence. This decision forces him into a clandestine existence, observing the family from the shadows while his own sense of reality begins to fracture. The narrative explores the boundaries of voyeurism and belonging through Wilson's increasingly detached perspective.

This novel presents a stark examination of alienation and the psychological toll of social displacement. The narrative style emphasizes the protagonist's detachment, creating a sense of unease that permeates the domestic setting. Readers often note the unsettling nature of Wilson's voyeuristic tendencies and the author's ability to maintain tension within a confined physical space. The work functions as a character study on the fragility of identity when removed from one's origins and placed into an unfamiliar, static environment.