In Mile End, Montreal, Léo Lauzon is a young boy living in a tenement with his dysfunctional family, serving as the unreliable narrator. He uses his active fantasy life and the book "L'avalée des avalés" by Québécois novelist Réjean Ducharme to escape the reality of his life. He feels his father is insane and denies being his son. After having a dream revealing his mother was impregnated after falling into a cart of tomatoes contaminated by an Italian man's semen, Léo identifies as Italian rather than French Canadian and adopts the name Léolo Lozone.