Everything good in Joe Magellan's life—family, teaching career, sanity—has been undermined by his baffling compulsion: breaking the world record for flagpole-sitting. Through the years Joe has made seven attempts at the record, his best effort a measly eleven days. Oranges begins on January 20, 1981, the day Joe is 'cured' of his compulsion at Dr. Malcolm Kerridge's 'Out, Damn Obsession!' seminar. Alas, the charlatan's cure does not take. Joe immediately stumbles upon the perfect flagpole, sixty feet high, and, before long, to the horror of his wife and son, he climbs up and settles in on a ten-foot-square redwood platform for one final assault on the record, while Clover and Nate run the little cafÉ below. Joe's pursuit of the pole-sitting grail is disrupted by Clover's budding artistic aspirations; by Nate's rebellion at J. Edgar Hoover Middle School; by the seductions of Joe by an ex-seminar mate and of Clover by an art gallery owner; by the commercialization and massive popularity of the pole-sitting enterprise; and by the ruthless Shipwreck Blake, who both terrorizes and inspires Joe with assistance from the spirit of the original pole-sitter Simeon Stylites, the 5th century monk who dwelt on a pillar for thirty years.