Nicholas, the hero-narrator of The Adept, begins his story with an assault on the reader in the form of a paraphrase of Charles Baudelaire. Nicholas is “a healthy full-grown adult male animal with air down past his shoulders and a fine set of muscles.” He spends his days in meditation, turned on by drugs and sex. Nicholas supports himself pushing cocaine. The scene moves back and forth from Greenwich Village to a jet flight to the Arizona desert in a phantasmagorical adventure story of cocaine and murder. Time shifts and reflects the post-psychedelic generation. This is the story of a 24-hour trip.