Theobald Moon hopes to satisfy the yearnings of his hungry soul (and considerable belly) when he leaves south London to start a new life in the Arizona desert. Planting a cactus garden around his mobile home where he can stargaze and practise yoga, Theo provides a haven of security for his small daughter Josie, weaving around her a gossamer web of fairy stories and belief in an ordered universe.
But as his little Jelly-O grows into disaffected adolescence, she has questions for Theo which he refuses to answer. For there is a terrible secret at the heart of this story, a mystery which propels between the Arizona desert and snow-bound Slovakia, where an ice-cream seller and a shoe-factory worker meet and fall in love. Is it chance or destiny that brings this young couple into contact with an overweight Englishman whose own longing for love could mean the end of their dreams?
