Willie and Lester are a couple of poet friends who live in Linden Hills, a private neighborhood owned by Luther Nedeed. It's one of those poverty-stricken places which take advantage of residents' inability to look elsewhere in order to charge and demoralize them for every little detail. The neighborhood is laid out in various levels, each successive ring down from the hills being more poor. Luther lives at the bottom with his greatly abused wife and son. In fact Luther is the town undertaker and lives on a separate little island blocked off with a drawbridge.
Willie lives with his mother at the top of the neighborhood. Although he's passionate about his poetry, he wonders whether he will succeed. He's tired of living such a desperate life and is unwilling to compromise his values to drift into the mindset necessary to survive in such a place. Coming from an abusive childhood, Willie has built himself up a great deal. He's an ambitious guy, constantly looking for more. His conversations with Lester reflect this because they engage in consistent debates about the efficacy of life at Linden Hills.
Living in Linden Hills is essentially “making it”, and living in the house on Tulepo Drive is the epitome of “achievement and visible success”. Somehow, the house on Tulepo Drive frequently goes back on sale. Willie and Lester act as tour guides, leading the reader through their neighborhood. We see characters giving up different things, love (Winston, who denies his lover David in order to marry a woman, fearing that homophobia will stop his rise in the community and world of law), and Reverend Michael T. Hollis (who ditched the Baptist church to adopt the Episcopalian religion which would get him a position as a Reverend, and became an alcoholic) to become more successful and rise in the eyes of the community/society.
For his part, Lester is a cynic. He writes because he has nothing better to do. Although he lives in a worse state than even Willie, Lester takes a critical stance toward his neighbors. He resents how materialistic and prideful they are despite their circumstances. Still, as Willie argues, Lester is one of them. They both are. As they travel through the neighborhood, they both learn something about themselves through their friendly conflict. They decide that they will leave this place someday, any chance they get. By the end of the tour, Luther's house has burst into flames.
