Homer, the Korean War veteran narrator, is in love and newly wed to his blonde forty-one-year-old wife.

He struggles with his affection and attachment to her and his affection and desires for other women. His stories of the dentist, the professor, and the Foot family are tragic tales of self-destruction in a small Southern town. Tying these stories together is Homer's attempt to help his friend Jack stop his daughter's self-destructive love affair with rock star Ronnie Foot.

Jack is the namesake in the title.

Jack, a former sheriff and currently a shopkeeper, has known the dentist, the professor, and the rock star. He is a classy, well-dressed man whose former wife committed suicide. Alice is Jack's daughter who has a one-time tryst with Homer and a fatal attraction to Ronnie Foot and his lifestyle. Alice is a fortyyear-old teacher who decides the liberal arts got her nothing...