Thirteen-year-old Billy Fail lives on the last farm in his town. Around him, suburban sprawl. One day, a developer suggests to Billy's grandfather that his property would make for a nice shopping mall. The grandfather refuses. During an ensuing scuffle, the grandfather gets tossed to the ground and dies. Now homeless and worse, wanted, Billy goes the only place he knows to go: the woods. The woods occupy a special place in this part of the country: once the roaming ground of legitimate outlaws and thieves, now home to a community of highly disciplined, monastic and rigorously peaceful French priests.When Billy first runs across the priests, he runs like hell, only to bump into someone equally terrifying, Zave, a man with a long past and a dark secret. Meanwhile, the Developer begins to have regrets. He himself is from the woods, and he begins to wonder if his pursuits are really worth causing this much pain. Unfortunately, by the time he tries to call off the dogs, his muscle Levon has gone rogue. Levon is an angry man with a severely misguided sense of righteousness. During the dramatic climax, he screams at Billy, 'You soft little suburban skirt. You could never have lived like I live, out here, in the woods.'Billy learns new secrets, and slowly, gathers the strength to fight back.