Art Bechstein steps out of the library into the summer of his graduation year, a season that lies between a past full of secrets and a future of hard-won experience.

Art's father wants his son to become a respectable adult, even though his own discreet "business" is that of a gangster. But Art, not yet ready for respectability, falls in love with the exotic, charming Arthur Lecomte, and ricochets between a homosexual relationship and an intense affair with a strange and beautiful girl called Phlox. Before long, the world of his new friends and the underworld of his father must collide, with consequences that Art cannot control.