The story, told by a struggling writer and set among the expatriate community in 1920s Paris, deals with a failed sculptor named Beano Walsh, who claims he cannot create his art since the anatomy books are all wrong.
Since all the obvious forms of craziness have become passé, he decides to exaggerate normality: In this land of soft shirts, worn open to the navel, and corduroy trousers, I would wear hard collars and carefully pressed suits of formal, stylish cut, and carry clean gloves and a tightly rolled umbrella.
An impending visit by one of Hahn's scouts to check on Beano's progress troubles him and he resolves to present an explanation for his inability to create: he argues all the anatomy books are wrong because they all used models that were five foot ten or less, while the ideal modern man is six feet tall.
One night, as the narrator and three friends sit among the Americans at the Dome, Beano pulls up in a cab and excitedly tells them he has found his perfect specimen, the corpse of a sailor, which he has brought with him, wrapped in brown paper.
[2] Though West spent a few weeks in Paris in 1926 and met various artists and writers including Max Ernst and Henry Miller, he would later claim that he had in fact lived in poverty there for several years, much like the narrator of this story.
The specific "madness" the narrator tries to feign by exaggerating normality is also similar to West's perceived persona while he was a student at Brown University, where he often wore Brooks Brothers suits and was considered a "dandy" by his schoolmates.
"[4] The twin themes of art and the deception which may lay at its core link this story to The Dream Life of Balso Snell, where the title character comes across countless artists and writers, who try to present themselves a certain way but may all be charlatans.