From the privileged Upper East Side housewife dealing with the death of her only son, to the courageous hooker who used to dream of a better life, and the radical Irish monk trying to make a small difference in the lives of a group of drug-fuelled prostitutes, McCann takes you on a journey of New York and its various faces, submerging one into the gritty reality of everyday life, making the city come alive through the characters that inhabit it. Set just after the end of the Vietnam war, the characters weave a complex web as their lives are connected and collide with each other, transformed forever.