Liam Armstrong is an artistic, educated, hard working family man, but underneath his charismatic persona, he is a radical-minded outcast with a strange hobby for phobias. During the school summer holiday period, he becomes a temporary manager at the isolated Oak Lodge Conservatory hoping to cure his son’s fear of his sadistic primary teacher. He settles in along with his wife and son in a seemingly idyllic sanctuary surrounded by tranquil forests and lakes, but as Liam’s unhealthy preoccupation for finding people with irrational fears worsens, he ends up inadvertently tormenting his family and colleagues. As he unravels the dark secrets of the conservatory and exposes the lunacy of its micro-management system, he disrupts the balance of this retreat with catastrophic results. Quirky, philosophical, and suspenseful, this dark comedy novel is full of mystery and drama which ridicules the modern work ethic and sympathises with the cynical individualist struggling to survive "after they have blown out all the smoke from inside their head".