Welcome to Salvation, known to the locals as Ruination - a bawdy, ribald town where nothing is sacred except perhaps the beer, the sex and the fishing. The people who live there are villainous, perverse, and unashamedly venal: there is John, who runs the local pub, Jean Flinch whose reputation at the Virgin Wall is infamous and little orphan Ernie, whose giant jawbone is both a curse and a blessing. When Ernie re-invents himself as The Slapping Man, all hell breaks loose as the locals clamour to find their own salvation by giving Ernie a good slap. Indeed it seemed that Ernie could rejuvenate the town on mass. There was just one problem - Slapping Men don't live forever.