This story is about a child born in a racially mixed marriage with a black father and a white, Jewish mother. The boy is nourished by his black grandmother who protects him from the battles that take place between the mother and father over money.
At age three, the grandmother is asked to leave the household, leaving the youngster devastated. This trauma remains with the boy making him bitter against the two parents who abuse him, neglect him and prevent his development and maturation.
At age eight, the father leaves home to spend six months in a Sanitarium because of contracting tuberculosis. He returns after six months sicker than before with this incurable disease. The boy learns that he has contacted the same disease and is sent off to a children's hospital where he must hide his Jewish ethnic background from the five hundred Christian children who hate Jews.
When the child arrives home, he is greeted by a new brother who takes his place as the center of the family.
One day the father dies from his deadly disease. The boy is happy to rid himself of a tyrant who mistreated the family.
Eventually, the baby brother is sent off to Penn Hurst, an institution for the retarded. The eleven year old is now completely free to roam the streets with no authority to control him. He learns that his early abuse by his father carries over into his relationships with his friends and male schoolteachers. He is unable to express himself verbally, has a stutter, and feels shy and stressed out in social situations. This brings on a strong desire to improve his speech and eliminate his inhibitions, but his father still influences him from the grave.
He compensates for this lack of skills by becoming a great athlete in junior high, then high school, and finally at Penn. State University.
After graduation from college he finds the engineering job at the Philadelphia Naval Base too much to handle because he is victimized by constant stress.
He visits a psychiatrist because his inability to speak even with a college degree frustrates him. He gets very little out of the visits except to develop a strong interest in discovering the causes of his disability. His search goes on for many years, work is avoided, and full time is devoted to dissecting the division within his psyche that is causing a malfunctioning personality.
When his funds are diminished and his mother refuses to support him, he discovers a fund raising position that hovers on the shady side. He begins to make some good money, but is called into court for misrepresenting; the judge sentences him to three years in jail.
He is devastated, but continues to practice his therapy, which consists of kicking his legs from side to side and massaging his face, head and arms vigorously. The inmates begin to mock him until he admits to a black group that he is one of them.
He is accepted and respected when he insists that the black and white come together in harmony. He also becomes an amateur therapist with his own office in the library. Leroy, the leader of the black group insists that he speak to the mixed group on Sundays to teach them the meaning of getting along with each other.
Leroy and he bring about rehabilitation in the jail by appealing to the Governor for changes.
