In 1924 New York, Lil (short for Lillian) Moore, an artist, and Leon Shaffer, an accountant, narrate this Jazz Age story of triangular love, art and its future, willing and unwilling sacrifices, heroes and heroines, dreams, visions and illusions, music, insanity, insomnia, fame and the lack of it, and how each era is similar and different from our own. Lil's patrons, Mr. and Mrs. Becker, have interesting, themed parties at their country home. Their lion, Herbert, is wise and a good companion. Alice Thompson, a talented visual artist, and George Holman, an attractive older man and owner of the 191 Gallery, are loosely based on Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz. Marco, a piano player, and Izzy, an African American singer, are also members of the Bohemian group. Lil's desires and needs, as well as Leon's attraction to her, form the plot, which includes philosophical discussions at a Chinese restaurant Round Table, a women's art exhibition at George's gallery, a beauty contest, Lil's wish to act in moving pictures, a visit to a museum to see King Tut, and swimming in a lake.
The novel is studded with historical figures and other characters, including F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, a Freudian analyst, gangsters, absurdist artists and art lovers, and Mary Beach, a 191 Gallery assistant with her daughter, a long, white scar, and a criminal husband. 1920s slang, the experience of art creation, psychiatric notes, newspaper advertisements, headlines, articles, reviews of popular cultural events, and current events like the Leopold's and Loeb's murder of Bobby Franks all play a part in this book. This is a lyrical novel about a transitional time of early cars and telephones, movies, sham medical cures, bootleggers and speakeasies, and jazz. The book describes the first cheeseburger, the beginning of psychoanalysis, surrealism, and the beginning of the end of vaudeville and innocence.