A clean-cut young lawyer meets a beautiful prostitute who drags him into a decadent dead-end world of sex and corruption.

An enthusiastic young woman runs away to Chicago to start a new life. She is soon confronted with the emotional coldness of the big city and has to search for her place in the scheme of things.

Two young men who have been friends since early childhood decide to go on a trip to find a third friend who has long since disappeared. Stories they have heard indicate that the friend has been seen in an apparently rambling, incoherent state at Coney Island. Their trip leads them to a number of adventures involving the otherworld-like life at the Park and revelations related to their own pasts including the death of one's sister, a failed past relationship, financial failings, and alcoholism.