Waking up on a gurney in a hospital in Southern California, Geronimo Vang is presumably deceased after overdosing on "enough heroin to kill an elephant." But, when the two attendants who are supposed to prepare his body for the morgue go outside to get high first, Geronimo comes to and escapes from the hospital.

Reimagining his life after moving to NYC, Geronimo buys a new identity in Chinatown. He is also chosen by fate to meet the owner of the Mercer Street Bookstore, who offers Geronimo a job operating the store. Becoming engrossed in everything available to him in the store and the city - the books, the music, the theater, the restaurants and haunts, and the opera, allows him to create a new identity as a writer and eventually become a very successful published author .

Enjoying his new-found success yet lonely for a companion of his ilk, Geronimo meets a beautiful Vietnamese woman, a student, and a writer named Minh, with whom he immediately falls in love. Yet he is cautious about getting too close because he believes she will want to know about his past, which he can't recall. The world is also evolving; a virus that affects only the white male population brings about a change in leadership and new solutions to the climate crisis and economic inequality. Enjoying their marriage, work as writers, and each other, their idyllic life is interrupted by Dorothy, who shows up at their home one day, claiming to be Geronimo's daughter. Dorothy discloses that Geronimo, in his former identity, was implicated in the death of her stepfather. But she has come to seek out her real file whose works she admires.

Dorothy announces that her mother, Shirley, is visiting her. Shirley is a shrewd yet sad and lonely woman who becomes irrational and abusive when she drinks. Hearing of her impending visit causes Minh to visit her family in Viet Nam until Geronimo can figure out and deal with his past.

Shirley's visit is brief, and after a drunken incident at Coney Island, she leaves. Minh returns, and she and Geronimo resume their idyllic life. Dorothy asks if she can make a documentary of them for film school, ala Grey Gardens. They agree to a period of 9 months of filming since Minh is pregnant.

Giving birth to a baby girl named Thanh, the couple thrives in their relationship and respective careers until Geronimo decides to come clean about his past in a new book. Incensed by the expose and still angry at him, Shirley writes her book with revelations detailing their life together, shattering Geronimo's career. With Minh's encouragement, Geronimo takes treatment at a memory center and, after a few sessions, is given insight into his past and the truth about what happened the night Dorothy's stepfather was murdered.

Geronimo agrees to be interviewed by an aging poster boy of victimized white males. Instead, he triumphs over the accomplishments of the new nonwhite male leadership, adding that it has all been an extraordinary turn of events. Finally, Geronimo goes home to Minh and Thanh, realizing he has attained the most incredible gift a man could wish for.