When the devoted wife of a Yiddish writer recruits a young man to translate her husband's work in 1960's New York, the young man must contemplate his priorities and mission in life.

Chassidic Jew Joseph Gillis grapples with the artifice and hypocrisy of Harvard life, decrying the muddle of egoism and lunacy in the academic world even as he succumbs to it.

A group of elite, highly-educated friends grapple with their interpersonal issues in 1960s New York, struggling when even their intense academic attempts to understand life fail to help them sort out their relationships with one another.