Ryan Gibson, the author of the groundbreaking novel Ian Baxter, is a fringe member of a group of artists who frequent the infamous apartment of Clayton Cooper, an elitist writer of little success but great influence. Cooper's disdain for Gibson's work shatters the group and spawns a second great novel of the period by Gibson's best friend Thomas Campbell.
In the midst of the firestorm, an American police action in Korea draws Gibson to the horrific killing fields of South Korea. He returns a shell of himself, a battered and reluctant voice of a generation he could and would never identify with.
Gibson's suffering extends to three tumultuous relationships that only add to his staggering burden as possibly the American writer of the century. A lifelong nemesis reenters his world and tries to destroy what little life he has left. Their struggle is fierce and all consuming. Only one will survive the war of words and actions that defined their relationship. Ian Baxter is the answer to questions that should never be asked.
