In "His Blue Period," a painter who owes his small success to a man he despises, discovers that his passivity has cost him the love that might have set him free.  In "The Unfinished Novel," a writer of modest talents encounters the old love who once betrayed him - now she repels him - yet the unfinished novel she leave in his care may surpass anything he could produce himself.  In "The Change," a printmaker of a certain age enters so deeply into the magical world of her imagination that she can never find her way back.

In these six compelling stories, Valerie Martin turns an unflinching eye upon artists - driven and blocked, desired and detested, infamous and sublime - as they struggle beneath the tyranny of Art to reconcile their audience with their muse.