Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44-year-old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger's Syndrome living in the chaos of New York, strike up an extraordinary bond.

Spanning twenty years and two continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs. Their story is innocent but not naive and takes you on a journey exploring friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more.