This is a coming-of-age story of a biracial young man growing up on the outskirts of New Orleans in a single-parent home with his black mother–absent of his white father–during the early 1900s. The story explores religious, racial, and class dynamics during the period from 1905 to 1919 as experienced by the mulatto bastard son of a prominent New Orleans businessman.

The story starts in the Jim Crow era where the protagonist lives in a small community where he and his siblings were shipped off to once his father married. At the age of fifteen, he hitchhikes to New Orleans and begins his quest to understand himself and to find his place in the world. Throughout the story, he must contend with the color consciousness, racism, and religious bigotry that define his status in the community.