Mel Montrose is a beautiful blonde grad student with a secret. Two secrets. We only know what she wants us to know. Until she is forced to run from an obsessed admirer into the arms of her family whom she has been avoiding. Then the first secret is revealed and we understand some of her motives.
The second secret involves the admirer and his role in her evolving literary career. Mel approaches the legendary Northrop Frye to supervise her thesis: she will be dissecting an epic poem about the 17th century Jesuit, the giant Jean de Brébeuf.
She spends the summer at the reconstructed mission, Sainte Marie among the Hurons, to soak up the atmosphere for her thesis, but finds more than she is looking for, including a giant actor who will play the Jesuit in a production at the site. Both of them struggle with identity, and eventually, the insistent admirer who brings all their stories to a climax.
