Set in the late sixties and early seventies in Montreal and Paris, the novella deals with Sebastien Elia, a young but accomplished artist, and his anarchic relationship with Lee Archer, a Canadian-born student-artist. Sebastien introduces him to the violence of life, sex and art. His rapacious hunger to devour experience draws Lee and a small group of intimates into a world of free love, social, artistic and sexual experimentation and rebellion. The sexual revolution is in full swing, but so is political unrest. Lee still longs to connect with his childhood sweetheart, Louisa Sable. Yet he begins a love affair with another art student, Anne Asher. Sebastien's betrayal of student cell of the FLQ in Quebec makes him a marked man and the target for political revenge. On the run, he returns to Paris, pursued by agents on a dark mission to assassinate him. When one of Sebastien's "temporary muses" is murdered, Lee and Anne set out for Paris and are drawn into Sebastien's sexually charged dark world of hunger, love and revolt.