A young man with a scarred face and a talent for drawing clouds finds his life irrevocably altered by a chance encounter in 1930s New York. Ewan McCall, a man fleeing a traumatic past in Scotland, attempts to reinvent himself as an architect in the bustling, unforgiving landscape of Manhattan. His path crosses with Olive, a woman whose own secrets and desires pull him into a complex web of ambition and longing. The narrative unfolds through a blend of memory and present-day struggle, exploring the tension between the art of creation and the reality of human frailty.

This work is often noted for its evocative sense of place and its ability to capture the specific anxieties of the pre-war era. Readers frequently highlight the author's attention to architectural detail as a grounding force for the more ethereal, romantic elements of the plot. The narrative pacing is generally described as deliberate, favoring character introspection over rapid-fire action sequences. It is widely regarded as a study of how individuals attempt to construct new lives from the debris of their previous experiences.