Do people have to be beautiful to be loved? Hobbie--this novel's darkly romantic hero--has been banished to homely man exile in the North Georgia Mountains, where his enemies are mirrors and bears. Things are not going well for Hobbie. His skin is a "pizza face," super-sized, with extra pepperoni and pitted olives. Job status? Former bank teller. Love life? His common-law wife Kari has gone AWOL at a weight-loss clinic in North Carolina. But just as it seems Hobbie is doomed to go through life as a sweet, self-pitying "anonymous joke," he jumps out of his skin and becomes downright heroic. Can Hobbie rescue Kari from the weight-loss clinic? Can he pull his fractured family together? Plastic surgery--will he or won't he? Will love endure if Hobbie's skin clears up, Kari drops pounds, and ugly people become flawless?