Coleman Silk is a worldly and admired professor who loses his job after unwittingly making a racial slur. To clear his name, Silk writes a book about the events with his friend and colleague Nathan Zuckerman, who in the process discovers a dark secret Silk has hidden his whole life. All the while, Silk engages in an affair with Faunia Farley, a younger woman whose tormented past threatens to unravel the layers of deception Silk has constructed.

Psychiatrist Sydney Garland spends another day at the office, but when a gunned man with an unknown want enters, things take an unexpected turn.

Mickey Jones is an all-American rockabilly, complete with slicked-back hair and smokes rolled in his sleeve. Yet, behind his cool demeanor he is plagued by an abusive past.