Young John Cole's dream of growing up and living wild and free on his grandfather's Texas ranch is shattered when his grandfather dies and John runs away to Mexico.
Ben Telfair gives up his education to apprentice in stonemasonry with his grandfather, Pawpaw, in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s, and as the two bond, the distance between them and the rest of their family grows.
Cornelius Suttree, having abandoned a life of privilege, takes up life as a river fisherman on a dilapidated houseboat near Knoxville, Tennessee, where he encounters an assortment of eccentrics and outcasts.
