A novel within a novel, based on two very different premises. Both are expressed through the irrepressible Tommy Callaghan, an eighty-year-old Australian, who has just won two Oscars for his screenplay and direction of the film Miwako and who is feted on the Fran Winfield television show. Fran announces to the world that she has pulled off an exclusive: Tommy will read extracts from his book, Miwako, the tragic story of an asylum seeker, from which he'd adapted his screenplay, on the show daily from his home via satellite. Tommy is often assisted, uninvited, by his eccentric artist wife.