The wife of Eisav Levendal, editor of a small magazine, is away on a trip. Alone in New York, which is suffering from a heatwave, Levendal must take care of his brother's family, who works in another city and whose young son is sick. One evening he meets an old acquaintance, Olbi, who accuses him of ruining his life. At first, Levendal tries to get rid of Olbi, but he becomes his shadow, a demonic shadow that gradually convinces him of his guilt and turns his life into a nightmare, plunging him into madness and fear. In this second novel, which The New York Times described as "a Dostoevskian nightmare written with unusual power and acuity," Saul Bellow unfolds all the mastery and richness that have earned him many awards and, of course, the 1976 Nobel Prize.