The novel is narrated by William Cody, born in London in 1970 and brought up alone by his father, Issac. To bridge the generation gap between them, his father tells William stories of their shared ancestry and in particular of Issac's grandfather, the famous cowboy Buffalo Bill. In his twenties, William leaves home for Japan, escaping his father and his increasingly dominant tales of Buffalo Bill. Whilst abroad, he falls in love with Hitomi, a woman who represents the opposite of the world he has left behind, rooted in history, ancestry and story telling. William is summoned back to England by his father, who presents his son with a business plan. Buffalo Bill, he says, was not so much a figure of the wild west, but a self-invented fantasy, who toured America and the beyond with his stage show, 'The Congress of Rough Riders of the World'. It is Issac's proposal that he and his son re-introduce these shows to a contemporary audience and by doing so make their fortune. Refusing to be a part of such a plan, William again leaves England and is eventually reacaquainted with Hitomi. Tragedy strikes however and William must eventually return with his own son to his dying father.