Jack Moreno is suffocating. On most days, he likes to brag about his apartment in the Manhattan summers, how there's always a breeze from Central Park and he has no need for air conditioners. But one summer night he steps out into the still, oppressive night and has to reach out a hand to steady himself. You see, Jack's not only bothered by the heat. Clear across the other West Side, his friend Wolf is dying. He and Wolf are friends, old friends, the kind that toss out one-liners about each other's ethnicity (Mexican, Jew), bat about the intricacies of American politics, and catalog past sexual conquests as like a shopping list. But their friendship has been burdened with Wolf's declining physical health for some time. They have long ago burned out of their hope for a miraculous recovery. Loved ones and associates from Wolf's past converge in Wolf's apartment. Barbs are thrown, relationships damaged, everything breaks open until Jack begins to question his life, his identity, and even his career as a journalist. An unabashed skeptic and maverick in society, the author explores the relationship of art and writing to commerce and politics in this savvy novel, which was first published in 1976, but still speaks poignantly to our times. Chock full of references to international politics, the arts scene, and intimate relationships, he dissects the end of a powerful friendship and the unmaking of a man.