Upon his return, he offers souvenirs to his friends, one of which Claire perceives as dangerously radioactive and refuses to have anything to do with. In explanation, he tells the story of a young man named Otis who decided to take a tour of the sites of the nuclear bomb tests that took place in the late Fifties and early Sixties. Dag disappears, but eventually calls from Nevada. Part Two, written in a more diary-like style, chronicles a series of events that began a few days after the picnic. Interspersed with these stories are expositional chapters in which background information of each of the three friends is revealed: how they all came to Palm Springs, and how they came to be friends with each other. As they eat their grilled chicken in a run-down suburb of Palm Springs (where they all live), they indulge in their habit of telling each other stories, what they all know are fictionalizations of uncomfortable truths about their individual lives. The first part of the novel (narrated in first person by protagonist Andy) focuses on the conversations that take place over a picnic lunch between life-confused Andy and his equally confused friends Dag and Claire. As the narrative explores the ways the three friends struggle to define themselves and their relationships, it also explores themes related to the function and nature of storytelling, the tension between materialism and self-expression, and the power/value of friendship.
This novel, perceived as revolutionary at the time it was published in the early 1990s, uses the individual stories as three good friends as metaphoric representation of the story of an entire generation - Generation X, young people born in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
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