Stephen Crane is writing a new novel, and it may be his last. The year is 1900. The famous author of The Red Badge of Courage is travelling to the Black Forest clinic in search of a cure for the TB that threatens his life. He dictates to his partner, Cora, the story of 'The Painted Boy', a story inspired by an encounter with a fifteen-year-old newsboy, Elliott, one wintry day in the Bowery. Elliott appears in the story, 'The Painted Boy', as the impression- able, elusive boy who finds himself the object of the hopeless affections of the staid middle-aged banker, Theodore. Elliott frequents the Fairy Saloons of turn-of-the-century Manhattan, home of an outrageous, hedonistic group of raggle-taggle transvestites. Slowly, Theodore is drawn into a seedy underworld of secrets and betrayal that endangers their love, their homes, and their lives.