Arthur Hawke works as a coal truck driver in Kentucky, he in the process trying to protect his widowed mother Sarah Hawke's property rights against his wealthy and cutthroat paternal uncles' mineral rights. Sarah, however, may be more astute in the matters of business than her son. In his spare time, Arthur is writing a novel under the pen name Youngblood Hawke, it, his first, which he is able to sell to a New York publishing house. As such, Arthur moves to New York City while he works on the necessary rewrites and contemplates his next novel, which he knows can and will pour out of him. Even before that first novel, Alms of Oblivion, is published, Arthur is the toast of certain literary circles in New York. Naive to the ways of the business, he gets caught up in this new life, in having to deal with the publishers, agents, managers, lawyers, critics, theater people who want him to translate the work into a play, and movie types who want to purchase the movie rights. He has to decide whose advice to follow in these matters, he potentially being overextended in he wanting to do and have it all. He does not realize until he is ensconced within this life that there was a latent passion associated with his work, the women around him who can smell it ooze off of him. The feminine advances for who he ultimately falls is that of Frieda Winter, a wealthy, married socialite and a frequent patron of the arts. In his affair with Frieda which needs to be hidden at every turn, Arthur may not yet realize that what he feels for his story editor, Jeanne Green, who initially discovered his unsolicited manuscript, is more than just professional gratitude. Through it all, Arthur may eventually come to the understanding that his standing in this world is solely judged on the success or failure of his latest work.