The Moose Head Over the Mantel follows several generations of an American family wrought with abuse, dysfunction and violence, from the 1880s through the 1980s. The story centers on Lillian Hoffhienze Bachman and Jay Bachman, a young married couple who have just moved into the Hoffhienze family home with their troubled son, Nicholas. Lillian soon becomes obsessed with learning about her sordid ancestry, terrified that the past might dictate her son`s future. The tale unfolds from the perspective of the moose head hanging over the mantel in the Hoffhienze home, both a silent witness of the heinous events that have taken place over the course of one hundred years and the family`s inadvertent prisoner.