Tormented by bloodhounds chasing him on an east German plain, Askild Eriksson is a murderer, a cubist painter and a thief. His son, Niels Jug Ears Junior, pencils monsters all over the house, finds he's often the one holding the family together but uses dynamite to blow up the privy when his cherished coin collection is sold. And our narrator, The Bastard Boy, a hero for drinking his cousin's pee, fears dogs coming out of the walls and can't stop obessing about the space under the stairs, has a startling confession to make. But in order to do so, he must plumb his shipwrecked family history to sort out the chaos and clear the way. Three generations of wild and dysfunctional Eriksson men are seen through layered and looping stories as each endures coming-of-age trials and their inevitable ensuing humiliations. ut as the stakes are raised, our narrator's reality and mythology merge into one to become the DOGHEAD. Unable banish it to the shadow realm, he tells us about all the bad things children do- pushing the past forward and past the point of no return.