The narrator, a gay sf/fantasy writer in contemporary New York, is caught by some half-buried memories and begins to search for his own youthful self. He finds photos that once haunted his imagination: men dying in a ditch, Elvis at his induction. Looking for pictures of himself in his late teens, he finds only snapshots of a young dandy, poet, hustler. He recognizes the kid as his own first fictional creation: born out of schizophrenia and substance abuse, he is Bobby Shafto, Prince of the Blood!

Set against the demimonde of Long Island, New York, Bobby's adventures bring a cinematic grandeur to the narrator's bad times with his father and Army ROTC. Eventually, he finds himself in a writing class. He shows us some of his early stories. Then, in contemporary New York, he tells us about his father's decline and death and creates a story about his father and himself.