Mary Devstenia, Army Girl, is a normal young woman attempting to make her way in a reality which seems determined to crush her every hope and besmirch her cherished dreams of love, independence, and a modest yet meaningful place in the world. Her marriage falls apart. Passion becomes humiliation and rape. Family tradition and working-class necessity turn her both to a community college where she meets the compelling Marina Carey, her teacher and possible soul mate, and to the Army Reserve which leads her to a desert highway and a fatal meeting with Fatima and her child. From that point on, her life becomes a spiral, whether downward or upward, one cannot say. She finds comfort of a sort in Lenard Cohan, an alienated Vietnam veteran. Her father, David, remains her strength to the end. But is she not, as one of her tattoos suggests, merely a plaything of the gods? Are not they all? Maybe the grotesque biker wanna-be Paulie Perfunctorio has the answer. Or perhaps Jennifer, the nuclear cockroach who is possessed of human intellect. And then there are always Pam and her half-brother Jesus who may know. But they simply will not tell.