It all begins with a big wedding in Pittsburgh. Cynthia and Adam get married; they are both twenty-two and they are the first among their generation to enter into the feared, despised, and ambiguously desired adult life. They have lived together for the past two years in New York, but they get married in Pittsburgh (an opaque industrial city) because Cynthias mothers second husband, the wealthy Warren Sikes, has happily paid for the luxurious wedding. And also for the travel and accommodation expenses for all the guests, a battalion of youngsters who spurn the world of their elders yet have no desire to change it; they just want to take it over, and they know that the opportunity will inevitably arrive.