Set in the contemporary classical-music world of New York City and Tanglewood, the novel centers around the Faustian struggles of Ray Stoneson, a thirty-two-year-old composer, talented yet unrecognized. When Ray meets Perry Green, an internationally renowned, considerably older gay conductor and composer who is desperately attracted to him, both of their lives change inexorably. Perry offers to further Ray's career in exchange for a relationship; Ray eventually complies, but his secret sexual encounters with Perry threaten his relationship with Joy, the beautiful singer he longs to marry, and with Bobby, the idealistic but troubled young actor who is in love with Perry.