The plot twists around the questions of humanity in a comic contemporary novel that portrays the trials of Shed, a half-breed, bisexual boy who works at a Victorian whorehouse in the old West.

Set against a world of struggling artists, the underground sex scene of New York in the 1980s, the drab, confining Idaho of Ben's youth, and many places in between [this novel is] a rich, expansive tale of love, sex, and heartbreak, covering twenty-five years in the life of a striving, emotionally wounded writer. In New York, Ben forms a bond of love with his macho friend and foil, Hank. Years later in Portland, a now ill Ben falls for Ruth, who provides...