Poison focuses on a small American town and how the people in it respond to an America caught in the throes of jingoism amidst an overseas tragedy of its own making. The characters in Poison are placed in normal situations that are set several turns on a Rubik's Cube away from reality. This book's storyline includes a sniping mystery, a midget mayor, a romance with a letter-carrier, disaffected African Americans, a children's home, grenades, peanut skins, cannibals, and a corn brewery; later it gets more complicated.