Brothers Theo and the wooden-legged Tim Christofferson; their wives Peggy and Linda; and their friend, Jerry Crossman, are partners in ownership of a small newspaper. They are eccentric liberals, in scandalous conflict with the town, particularly a Baptist minister by the name of Clete Fuller, who, as many others, is threatened by the behavior of these people and the group that collects around them.
A deeply religious group in the highest but unorthodox sense, they get together, hang out, have parties, festivals and banquets. They experiment enthusiastically, and get into all sorts of wonderfully complicated relationships and experiences: friendships, love affairs, births, deaths, political campaigns, magic shows, performance pieces, chau-tauquas, and the like. And they slowly begin to allow to emerge the first outlines of the coming spiritual options. All of this takes place around a gazebo that has been built in the yard between the houses of two of the major characters.
