The story documents the emotional awakening of Norman Moonbloom, an isolated, apathetic man in his thirties who, having recently ended a career as 'perpetual student', is now reluctantly in the employ of his brother Irwin as a property agent.

Irwin's tenants occupy a series of dilapidated apartments in some of the poorer areas of Manhattan, and Norman's life consists of attempting to collect their rent while constantly making them empty promises about much-needed repairs.

These unaccustomed intimacies bring on a seismic shift in Norman's personality, eventually inspiring him to defy his brother (who wants the apartments left exactly as they are) by undertaking all the promised repairs himself.

The book offers a plethora of wildly diverse characters, including: a gay black jazz musician who moonlights as a gigolo; an ancient German Jew who lives alone in an unspeakably filthy apartment, drinking the days away; a pair of childless sisters who dote on their orphaned nephew, conspiring together to keep him always a child; a blowsy former Shirley Temple wannabe who divests Norman of his virginity in exchange for a rent cut; and a prim Italian linguist afflicted by a terrifying swelling in his bathroom wall.

Wallant deftly develops this gallery of characters, giving each of Moonbloom's tenants a distinct and complex personality.