Susan Barnes

What happens when a person decides that life is merely a state of mind? If you're Betty, a small-town waitress and soap opera fan from Fair Oaks, Kansas, you refuse to believe that you can't be with the love of your life just because he doesn't really exist. After all, life is no excuse for not living. Traumatized by a savage event, Betty enters into a fugue state that allows -- even encourages -- her to keep functioning... in a kind of alternate reality.

Advertising executive Nick Beame learns that his wife is sleeping with his employer. In a state of despair, he encounters a bumbling thief whose attempted carjacking goes awry when Nick takes him on an involuntary joyride. Soon the betrayed businessman and the incompetent crook strike up a partnership and develop a robbery-revenge scheme. But it turns out that some other criminals in the area don't appreciate the competition.

A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.