According to Ferguson, the priest said that while suicide was a mortal sin, if someone were to jump from a bridge and genuinely repented of their action before they hit the river they would be forgiven.

The novel follows two best friends from Glasgow: Fraser Darby, an alcoholic televangelist caught up in a sex scandal, and George Ingram, an attorney diagnosed with terminal cancer who contemplates suicide.

In a parallel, the story also follows two half-brothers in the Southern U.S.: Leon and Saul Martini, the illegitimate children of a Las Vegas, Nevada showgirl, with the two fathers being Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford.

Eventually the lives of these four men intersect in a journey that ranges from Scotland to France, from Atlanta, Georgia to rural Florida, and from Hollywood to Belgium during World War I.

Supporting characters in the story include philosopher Socrates, poet Virgil, psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung and actor Tony Randall.