The novel is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, Stephen Monk, whose experiences are broken into three sections: An End, Letters and Life, and A Beginning.

Marital problems cause Stephen Monk to return to his birthplace, near Philadelphia, where he undergoes a period of cathartic introspection.

Though he is a member of the American jeunesse dorée, he is an emotional and observant man, and the novel chronicles his search for love.

Charles Kennedy, a friend of the protagonist, says: You thought it meant a swishy little boy with peroxided hair, dressed in a picture hat and a feather boa, pretending to be Marlene Dietrich?

[3] The composer Nicholas Maw's 1988 orchestral composition The World in the Evening acknowledges Isherwood's novel as supplying the title for the piece, but there is no other narrative connection.