At thirty, Robert Markel can manage, at best, an ironic relationship with himself. He is a successful drama critic who had once hoped to create powerful original work for the theater. As the novel opens, he stares at himself in the mirror and suppresses an impulse to strike the sneering face that confronts him. His frustrations lead him to commit a serious breach of professional ethics. The narrative ranges from an early childhood accident through his mother's terminal cancer when the boy is twelve, and on to his idealistic, awkwardly fervent teenage years.

The first phase of the book culminates in his decision to carve out a new identity for himself, to depart radically from what his father had always expected of him. A chance encounter with his future wife is followed by a sad reconciliation with his father, who has begun to suffer from a wasting neuromuscular disease. After his father's death, Robert's professional and emotional life begins to unravel.

Yearning for fulfillment through art and love, consumed by the drive to create something where nothing had existed before, Robert tries repeatedly to fill the void left by an emotionally absent mother and a father who failed to provide unconditional love beyond his earliest years.