""The shortest distance between two people is almost always a lie."" "Or so Davis Banks, teacher of poetry at a small Iowa college, diabetic, and perpetual liar, believes. Clinging to his philosophy, he goes about his days dealing with his uncertain self, letting his tangle of lies take him wherever it may lead. From inventor of the mobile bowling alley to amateur daredevil, Davis deftly changes identities with each new situation and stranger.".

"Until he gets a phone call beckoning him to Tennessee for his mother's funeral. Returning to his boyhood town, Davis becomes enmeshed in a set of lies not his own. Too many little things aren't quite right in his mother's house. He realizes he doesn't know how or where his mother died. Where are the keys to her car? And why is there another man's body in his father's grave?

Confronted with a myriad of loose ends, Davis slowly sinks into a quicksand of confusion where nothing is what it seems."--BOOK JACKET.