'The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.'
Cameron has just had some bad news: he's sick and is going to die. Which totally sucks. But then hope arrives in the form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel with a bad sugar habit who promises Cam there is a cure if he's willing to go in search of it.
With the help of Gonzo, a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf, and a garden gnome who might just be the Viking god Balder, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America of smoothie-drinking happiness cults (and possible serial killers), parallel universe-hopping physicists, mythic New Orleans jazz musicians, whacked-out television game shows, snow globe vigilantes, and disenfranchised, fame-hungry teens and into the heart of what matters most.