American Massif follows the first stages of one American Mastodon in his attempts to evolve. His life begins to resemble a human life. His mother appears human. His wife and children, human. His own birthplace and childhood. His appetites, sins, faith, cynicism, big plans. All apparently human.

The massif's landscapes are as varied as pinewoods, clay hills and prairie, but grow more abstract. In his naïve way, A.M. moves through or ponders the Higgs Field, art, national and family states of emergency. From his own house to an airport, from volcano to museum, he goes foraging for images good enough to eat, for friends, for antidotes to apocalypse.

Perhaps no more human by the end, A.M. is rereleased into the world, like new habitat-however threatened. Rather, like the Pompeian who returns to her city, the Mastodon comes into his own.