Gage Wallace's life falls apart when, after breaking up with his girlfriend and having a heart-to-heart with his television set, he finds himself framed for blowing up his apartment building - the latest in a string of deadly bombings in this doomed suburb. Neighboring Fat City fell into the river during an earthquake eight years ago, and ever since, these hapless ex-urbanites have been waiting for their own town to sink. But now their hopes are renewed by a talking rat, whose drunken ramblings are taken as prophecy of a better time ahead.
