Three boys grow up in rural North Carolina in the World War II era. Although from very diverse social backgrounds, they formed lasting bonds that amused and amazed all but their families. As with most, they drifted apart during college and postgraduate education, having developed different goals and values. The Vietnam War further separated them as one became a USMC combat pilot, one a Naval flight surgeon, and the last a protesting, antimilitary internist. Their extreme experiences in Vietnam led to epiphanies as to the core values of each. The death of one reunited the surviving two, revealing how horrid experiences led to greater understanding of themselves and others. One surrendered his surgical training to become a creative-writing professor, while the other found that his earlier moral and ethical digressions resulted in entrapment that ultimately led to international fame in medical research.

The story centers around an upward-moving young female reporter who is given the task of interviewing a creative-writing professor at Duke University as a proxy for the famous medical researcher who never gives presentations nor gives interviews for fear of revealing the past. She knows little of the reason for the interview, nor why she was selected, making the entire scenario mysterious. The children's tale of Three Billy Goats Gruff was the basis of a childhood play game enjoyed by the two survivors that later becomes the metaphor for how hard experiences led to change and self-actualization as the identity of the troll is revealed.