A man trained from childhood to assassinate a prominent spiritual leader faces the dilemma of carrying out that mission within a city where supernatural "bright doors" intersect everyday life.

Set around a single house that becomes the locus of strange occurrences, the book follows characters drawn into unexplained phenomena and the effort to understand what’s happening.

Set in late-1950s New York, the story follows Nick Russo, a reporter who has risen from a tough Brooklyn background and must keep his sexuality secret in a hostile era.

Set in a future where living form is determined by exchangeable cellular units called cytes and by unstable morphotypes rather than fixed DNA, the novel follows people whose bodies and identities are socially and medically negotiable.