Ever since David Monk was six years old, he has possessed the unexplained ability to alleviate pain without touching. Strongly urged on by his parents, he reluctantly uses his powers of healing to help his family and the members of his church. His best friend, Walter, is gifted in his own way, a genius and musical prodigy pushed hard to excel by his suffocating and overbearing father. Both boys would love nothing more than to be allowed to grow up in the 1960s as ordinary kids. But as they get older, they find themselves trapped by circumstances they can't control, and from which they are desperate to escape.

Ten years later, in 1975, Walter has disappeared. David settles into a bohemian life under an assumed name in a large Texas city. He meets and falls deeply in love with Callie, a beautiful Navajo "hand-trembler" with mystical gifts of her own. A shocking revelation from his childhood upends his comfortable, anonymous life, and David realizes that he must find his old friend.

The Unraveling of David Monk explores the power and burden of extraordinary abilities, the bonds of childhood friendship, the inescapability of the past, and the importance of being true to who we really are.