After a celebrated actor suffers a heart attack on stage, he reflects back on his queer becoming in the theater and on the streets of 1940s Harlem. Leo recalls his early days in the Greenwich Village art scene, coming into the orbit of aspiring actress Barbara, a white woman. Their complicated love affair opens for Leo the doors to a world of artistic freedom — and racist restrictions — he had hardly imagined. This lesser-read Baldwin has all his signature interrogations of blackness and sexuality, but it also offers peerless meditations on the creative process and young creative ambition. It is somehow equal parts devastating and inspiring.