A southern gothic novel about Ray Guthrie, an ambitious personal injury lawyer from Atlanta who travels to Florence, South Carolina to get a signature that would make him partner, but instead encounters an elderly man named Hungry Jenkins who claims to eat anything from light bulbs to cars. Through his unusual friendship with Hungry and a series of fantastical tales spanning American history and the Jim Crow South, Ray rediscovers the "magic" his ex-fiancée Denise said was missing, ultimately finding redemption and purpose by abandoning his pursuit of hollow success and embracing genuine human connection.