Dalton's biography of film icon James Dean not only explores the actor's tragically short life, but also pays special attention to the "cult of celebrity" that surrounded him and how, to a large degree, this was engineered by Dean himself.

The unnamed omniscient narrator--like a Greek chorus, or a tribal storyteller--relates the story of Joe and Violet Trace, a pair of orphans who meet and marry in rural Virginia, then come north to Harlem in 1906. Trapped in their unfulfilling marriage for 20 years, Joe begins an affair with a young woman, Dorcas. When she leaves him, he kills her--an act which, oddly, restores his relationship with Violet. Throughout the novel, the rhythms of jazz in early-20th-century New York propel the narrative.