Paul Soloway is an aspiring novelist who works in obscurity and dreams of fame - until fame is inadvertently thrust upon him in the form of a riot, a video camera, and a young black man named Victor Hartley.

Caught in the violent confusion of a community uprising in Manhattan, Paul subsequently finds himself a random victim and reluctant hero, the object of desire at the center of a media circus, and the unwitting subject of intense negotiation among lawyers and movie executives whose own creative abilities threaten to put Paul's to shame. The tumultuous weeks that follow culminate in a devastating confrontation between black and white, literature and commerce, infamy and renown.