Set in 1960s New Orleans, the book depicts "the dark side of America that erupted in the sixties"[1] and follows a number of characters who are tied to a right-wing radio station, the civil rights movement, and 1960s counterculture.

Though Rheinhardt wholeheartedly embraces his role at the station and delivers its messages with gusto, his eccentric friends, general outlook, and lifestyle of drinking and smoking marijuana belie his affinity for the socially-liberal counterculture of the 1960s.

Nonetheless, his affiliation with WUSA brings him into contact with a group of powerful, manipulative ultra-conservatives and race baiters who plan to use the radio station to racially divide the city and combat the civil rights movement, goals of which Rheinhardt is oblivious.

He first tries to enlist Reinhardt, his neighbor, to help, but he ultimately vows to take decisive action to derail a major public event that WUSA sees as its coming out party.

In 1970, A Hall of Mirrors was adapted into a movie, WUSA, with a screenplay by Stone and starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Perkins, and Laurence Harvey.