Madeleine Barthelemey is pregnant with twins. On the advice of her doctor, she decides to undertake their education in utero. Nine months later, Celine is born - a daughter whose cleverness and erudition vanish the moment she enters the world. Witnessing the fate of his once-brilliant and now dull-witted sister, the urbane, well-educated, but also conniving Louis rejects birth altogether and embarks on a campaign of prenatal rebellion. His mother tries to starve him out; he retaliates by attacking her internal organs. Guerrilla warfare is thereafter carried out between mother and son, and in the process Louis's fetal crusade becomes a cause celebre - he soon emerges as the first neonate to become both a cult figure and a powerful media icon, eventually demanding, and receiving, an audience with God.