Part 1, The Call: Chapter 1, In Which the Hero Is Introduced and Receives a Blow Summary

The story opens with the hero, Raleigh Hayes, reading a fortune cookie message at the Lotus House, the only Chinese restaurant in the small town of Thermopylae, North Carolina. Somebody had replaced the usual mundane fortunes with predictions of bad events, such as becoming ill with cancer. Raleigh's fortune predicts that he will go completely to pieces by the end of the month. Mingo Sheffield, Raleigh's friend since childhood, receives the warning that his wife is having an affair with his best friend. Neither man takes the fortunes seriously.

Raleigh is an insurance salesman who works on the twelfth floor of the Forbes Building in the center of downtown Thermopylae and has a secretary named Bonnie Allen...