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The protagonist of the novel, John Wade is a rising politician in Minnesota until his career ends after people learn that he participated in the massacre at Thuan Yen during the Vietnam War.

John experienced a troubled childhood. His father was an alcoholic who verbally abused him, including calling him fat. Despite this treatment, John loved his father. After his father committed suicide, John grew angry and often pretended his father was alive. John’s one bright spot was his love of magic tricks, which he practiced in the stand-up mirror. John’s childhood strongly impacts his development, seeding his love for trickery, deception, and manipulation.

In college, John meets Kathy and falls madly in love with her. Since he feels insecure, he spies on her sometimes. He proposes marriage, but before they get married, he first goes to Vietnam, where he fits in with his platoon, Charlie Company, by amusing them with magic tricks. His platoon dub John their good luck charm and start calling him “Sorcerer.” One day, John’s platoon attacks the village of Thuan Yen. He watches in shock as the men in his company murder hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. John wants the violence to stop, but he ends up killing two men himself: an old man and a fellow soldier. He claims he acted out of reflex. Afterward, John decides the only way to deal with what he has done is to rid himself of the memory of the event. Before returning to the United States, John gets a desk job with the military so he can erase himself from Charlie Company and move his name to another platoon.

When John returns home, he marries Kathy, but in his mind, he still is Sorcerer. John is guarded, and he worries that Kathy will stop loving him. He saw two snakes in Vietnam that were each eating the other’s tail, forming a zero. John thinks about these snakes a lot and how he wants to be like these snakes with Kathy.

John follows through on his plans to become a politician by going to law school and then taking a job with the Democratic Party. He says he wants to become a politician to do good for people, but he secretly acknowledges to himself that he likes manipulating people. John thinks politics is a lot like magic. He easily wins the lieutenant governor race. Around this time, Kathy gets pregnant, but he convinces her to get an abortion because it’s not a good time to have kids. This incident puts a chill on their marriage.

While John is leading in the Democratic primary for United States Senate, his opponent learns about his participation in the Thuan Yen massacre in Vietnam. After the story comes out in the paper, John loses in a landslide. He and Kathy escape to a secluded lakeside cottage. John has always yelled terrible things in his sleep, indicating that he still has memories from Vietnam, and in the aftermath of the election, John feels rage and humiliation and even appears mentally unstable. One night, he wanders around the cottage, yelling, “Kill Jesus!” and pouring boiling water over plants. The next morning when he gets up around noon, Kathy is gone, and so is the boat. Instead of calling for help right away, John spends the day cleaning and drinking, which later causes some law enforcement officers to be suspicious of him.

For the next few weeks, John goes out daily to search for Kathy, but he has trouble concentrating. He spends a lot of time thinking about Kathy and Vietnam. One night he considers making himself disappear. He dives into the lake and seems on the brink of suicide when he hears Kathy’s voice and resurfaces. John realizes that he feels better now that the secret is out. He doesn’t have to struggle to keep so much hidden inside him.

When law enforcement decides to search around the cottage, John grabs some supplies and takes a boat out by himself. He sails into Canadian waters. Sometimes he speaks to Kathy, even telling her about Thuan Yen. He throws his radio overboard. Then he heads north.

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