Jeremy Breton is a young writer about to graduate from college, while maintaining a relationship with his girlfriend, Elizabeth, who lives and attends college in New York City. He has eccentric friends and a voracious appetite for life, full of promise and ideas, but he has a secret that threatens to unravel everything. The novel is entitled Leon's Principles of Inaction and is written in first person point of view. The novel is a coming of age story with an outsider as the main character. It is an adult piece of literary fiction that takes place in modern America. As the novel begins Jeremy is dealing with the death of his grandfather and spends his time hanging out at bars and jazz clubs where his friends play, exploring downtown and the club scene. His best friend is a painter named Chloe Peters and he helps his mentor/friend Leon, a veteran and part-time philosopher, transport books across the city. He is introduced to Elizabeth, who is in town from New York, by one of his musically inclined friends named Mark. Jeremy takes her out and agrees to visit her in the city. They begin a long distance relationship while Jeremy becomes deeply entrenched in the underground culture, ultimately becoming a junkie after he meets up with a downtown denizen named J.J. and his girlfriend Jacynda. He tries to keep it a secret from everyone, even when it threatens everything that matters to him.