As a small, benighted town in the Deep South of the United States summons the audacity to host an authentic World"s Fair, a dynamic woman and two uncommon men battle a culture of arrogance and bigotry where mediocrities sabotage talent above and suppress it below. As a Presbyterian, a Catholic, and a Jew, all that Scotty MacGregor, Dorcas Bohannon, and Benjy Dietz have in common is one another. Against a suffocating tide of mediocrity in a hometown riddled with denial and self delusion, where to be different is an unforgivable sin, this inseparable "oddest couple" stands three as one. Their mutual salute: three thumbs up! From impoverished childhood in Remus City, South Carolina, they become the centerpiece in a tragic comedy of alienation and passion, idiocy and hilarity, hatred and love, death and triumph. Into their backwater community is drawn, as if by some irresistible, unseen magnet, a kaleidoscope of contrasting characters who alter it forever . . . and in the process capture the astonished attention of the world beyond.