This is the story of a former child prodigy who begins to lose his ability as he matures. We meet him as adult, who is teaching music at a college, and still longing to recover his previous ability. One day, he is summoned for jury duty and becomes involved in a murder case involving a young mentally ill man and his Zen teacher. He also becomes romantically involved with one of the jurors. At the same time, the narrator begins teaching a promising Korean boy who shows signs of being a prodigy. Salzman weaves all these threads into a deft, intriuging web about what it means to have talent and what it means to be human, although the book drags a little at the end, it is well worth the read.