Bird Kincaid can't sleep. She is plagued by nightmares - vivid images of Alex Decatur falling through the air. One month after she witnesses Alex, her closest friend, plunge eight stories to her death, Bird's grief has transformed into obsession.

In adjoining apartments on a boisterous, vibrant New York City block, the two young black women, Bird a radio engineer and onetime painter, and Alex a beautiful performance artist, had built an intense and unique friendship, their lives intertwined by shared space, history, friends and occasionally lovers, and a passion for art.

Alex's death shatters the core of Bird's existence, compelling her to search for comfort and answers amidst the disparate strands of her friend's quixotic life - a life sometimes glamorous, sometimes painful, sometimes reckless. Was Alex's death really a suicide? Her lover, a white art critic, was never charged with a crime, but Bird is increasingly convinced that he murdered her friend.

Desperate for evidence, Bird locates a bizarre series of videotapes among Alex's belongings, in which she talks about her personal life, her work, and her turbulent relationship with her lover. At first reluctantly but soon fervidly watching the tapes, Bird discovers both startling secrets and blatant lies as she is drawn back into their carefree vagabond past and across mythic boundaries in the dangerous present.

In the novel's intensely dramatic finale, Bird must confront her own long-hidden demons and test her powers as an artist and a survivor.