The plot is launched by English Professor Rigby Short, whose opera libretto, $4000, is about to be performed at a large Midwestern university. The novel's cast is composed of a gaggle of graduate students, some local singers and several professionals from the outside. An esteemed Japanese conductor appears on the scene, along with a wisecracking director from Philadelphia. What happens, Short is asked, when such a diverse group comes together? They tell lies. So they do, splendidly. There is the yarn about the innocent temptress from Biloxi and the odd revenge she takes on the man who steals her away. That one is topped by the tale of the fastest Jeep in the world and a deadly race in the Mexican foothills. A graduate student contributes a chiller about a pack of man-eating cats in his home town. When they are not swapping whoppers and case histories, the members of the troupe couple and uncouple in scenes that manage to be both erotic and clinically detached. Jealousies arise and a small epidemic of paranoia breaks out as opening night approaches.