Hurtle Duffield, a painter, coldly dissects the weaknesses of any and all who enter his circle. His sister�'s deformity, a grocer�'s moonlight indiscretion, the passionate illusions of the
women who love him���ll are used as fodder for his art. It is only when Hurtle meets an egocentric adolescent whom he sees as his spiritual child does he experience a deeper, more treacherous
emotion in this tour de force of sexual and psychological menace that sheds brutally honest light on the creative experience.