Jeffrey Lionel Magee loses his parents young and bolts from the aunt and uncle who never wanted him. He runs into the town of Two Mills, split down the middle between its Black East End and white West End, and starts doing impossible things: untying a legendary knot, hitting any pitch, crossing the color line as if he cannot see it. The town turns him into a legend and calls him Maniac. Jerry Spinelli writes it as folklore, part tall tale and part hard look at how a place teaches its children where they belong.