The novel is a formed out of two separate stories that at one point end up overlapping.
In the first part of the story, the narrator, a young man named Cullen is at the morgue with his mother, identifying the body of his dead cousin, Oslo who overdosed on drugs. His younger brother Gabriel is also with them and when they return home they find Oslo’s mother, Julia, crying about the death of her only son.
Cullen talks about his life in the small town he lives in with his family and about the girl he likes, a beautiful girl whose boyfriends all die after some time. Cullen is 17 and he is often bullied by a boy named Russell and by his friends. Cullen’s best friend is a boy named Lucas and they usually spend their time together, looking for ways to get rid of the boredom they have to face every day. After Cullen arrives home, he goes out to meet with his best friend, Lucas and with Lucas’ girlfriend, Mena whom Cullen dislikes because she was also Oslo’s former girlfriend.
Cullen works at a shop called the Handy Shop and one night, when Russell and his friends come he refuses to sell them cigarettes because they are not eighteen yet. He then goes to the salon where his mother works and spends some time there with his brother. Then, they go to the funeral and on the way back home they talk about a woodpecker that was supposed to be extinct but that was seen in the little town they live.
Cullen was also sad because the school year was over and he would no longer have the opportunity to see Ada again because she was going to graduate and leave the town where they were staying. The summer holiday brings a new visitor, a man named John Barling who came to investigate the appearance of the woodpecker. He is immediately hated by almost everyone because he starts a relationship with a woman from the city named Shirley Dumas.
Around the same time, Lucas goes to Cullen and tells him that he got him a date with a woman named Alma Ember who got married, got divorced and then returned to the small town once more. The date does not get too well however and Cullen doesn’t feel attracted to the woman at all. Cullen keeps thinking about Alma’s former husband and cannot stop thinking that the ex-husband will come after him.
That night when Cullen returns home, he finds that his brother is not home and sleeps that night in his room. In the morning, he wakes up finding that his brother still had not returned home. The family starts looking for him and then they call the police. After a few weeks and still no sign of Gabriel, the family becomes desperate.
In a moment of weakness, Cullen sleeps with Alma and when he wakes up he find’s Alma’s mother in the room, vacuuming the floors. Cullen then returns home but he doesn’t feel any better and lashes out at Lucas when he proposes they go and talk with the man who came in the town looking for the woodpecker.
The whole town is affected by the presence of the woodpecker and they all try to profit from it in the way they could. Cullen’s mother tried to come to grips with the fact that her son is gone forever but her husband is not as eager to give up. The person who is also interested in finding Gabriel is Lucas who begins interrogating the people he considered as being involved in Gabriel’s disappearance.
Russell, the young man who used to bully Cullen, gets into a car accident soon after he breaks up with Ada. Cullen also gets closer to Ada when she comes to the store where he works and stays with him when he starts to cry. The two starts to date and Cullen’s father becomes obsessed with finding his missing son so he spends his money on private investigators and even on psychics to try and find what happened to Gabriel. The family and the psychic go to a field and there the psychic tells them that Gabriel is buried beneath them. However, when they start to dig, they find nothing.
Cullen’s relationship with Ada progresses and they become intimate one night but stop talking for a few days after that. When they meet again, Ada apologizes for kicking him out of her house and promises him that they will find a way to be together.
Cullen tries to take care of his aunt who was affected by her son’s death the best he can while also dealing with Gabriel’s disappearance. Lucas tells Cullen that the woodpecker was photographed and Cullen agrees to go to the woodpecker festival just to see Ada who was seen spending her time with her former boyfriend. Cullen does see Ada at the festival but she is with Russell, taking care of him while he is bound to the wheelchair. When Cullen confronts Ada, she tells him that Russell needs her and claims that she feel responsible for his accident since she is called the black widow.
After ten weeks after Gabriel’s disappearance, Cullen’s mother shows signs of being affected by his disappearance. She refuses to do any of the things that brought her joy before and chooses instead to spend her time in Gabriel’s room. Cullen is pressured by his father to think about going to college but he claims that he wants to be left alone to mourn his brother.
Despite all this, Cullen continues to think that he will eventually find Gabriel alive and well.
In the second part of the story, the actions moves to Ethiopia where a young man named Benton tries to convert the people to Christianity. He soon discovers that the people there are more interested in getting food and water and have little time for other things. He thinks he received a sign from God when he sees a boy standing in the rain with a pigeon on his shoulder and decides to remain there despite the fact that he is not well received by the people.
However, his positivity doesn’t last long and he ends up sending a letter to Revered Hughes asking for his guidance and asking what he must do. After a few months, Benton finally receives an answer when he is sent a one way plane ticket back home. Thus, he concludes that he must return home. Before returning home however, he finds about the book of Enoch, a book that is not commonly included in the Bible in used by the Church. Benton takes his time analyzing the book before returning home.
At home, he does not receive the welcoming he wanted and his father expresses his disappointment in him. Benton is also told that he will no longer receive any missionary missions for a while and this makes him feel disappointed in himself as well.
Benton spends the summer with his family and then in the autumn he starts college and leaves his home. He becomes roommate with a rich man named Cabot. Despite his efforts, Benton falls behind with his studying and he even fails some of his classes. At Christmas, Benton is unable to take it anymore and jumps from the bell of a church.
Benton’s family is not interested in dealing with their son’s belongings so Cabot takes care of them, packing them and keeping an old diary he found in his belongings. Cabot reads about the book of Enoch and he becomes interested in it and in the way the Biblical events are presented.
Cabot is cut off by his father because he expresses such an interest in theological studies and he one day meets Alma at a movie theater. They hit off almost immediately and soon after starting their relationship Alma finds that she is pregnant. The two marry but Alma suffers a miscarriage and she ends up leaving Cabot when he begins to behave erratically.
Alma moves back in with her mother but soon after Cabot shows up at her door, trying to win her back. Alma tells him that she found a new boyfriend and Cabot becomes determined to find him. Unfortunately, instead of taking Cullen, he takes Gabriel by mistake and throws him in the trunk of his car. When he finds that the boy’s name is Gabriel, Cabot sees this as a sign from God and puts Gabriel back in the trunk of his car and drives away.
Cabot keeps Gabriel with him for a few weeks but Gabriel is unable to convince him to let him go. He is however set free when Cabot sees the woodpecker on the news.
The novel ends with Cullen looking out of the window and seeing his younger brother return home at last.
