Seven-year-old David Glum watches as his grandfather is abducted by a legendary herd of elephants. Twenty years later, after failing to sell his novel to a New York publisher, David returns to his parents' home to focus on growing a beard, a goal he feels sure he can accomplish. Once the beard reaches a respectable girth, uncontrollable things begin happening around him. His mother dies… maybe. His father might really be a man named Gary Wrench. David is sure of only one thing: his family is cursed. It could have something to do with an eternal flame his grandfather stole from a possibly imaginary group of people called the Nefarions. David and Wrench begin a surreal cross-country journey that might have something to do with saving the world. Along the way they pass through a number of absurd towns, meet some disagreeable people, and discover an America that is radically different from the one they thought they knew, a place where nothing can be accepted for what it seems to be. And all the while, the beard grows, gaining strength, leading them toward a distant island that most people think doesn't exist…