Madeleine and Jane, both in their early twenties, arrive separately in Manhattan in January 1968. Jane is an aspiring writer seeking adventure, Madeleine, a fragile young woman fleeing an erotic nightmare. They meet by chance and throw in as roommates, first in an East Village tenement and later, through a stroke of dubious luck, in the luxurious uptown apartment of a mysteriously absent woman. Together and apart, Madeleine and...