Growing up in a sleepy Texas town on the Mexican border, Jason Kelly is subjected to emotional abuse at the hands of his elder siblings. Together with the depredations of his Catholic school teachers too shameful to mention, it instills demons in him that he spends the rest of his life learning to overcome. Always in the back of his mind is the desperately lonely sound of the dogs barking in the distance as he lay in bed courting sleep. Throughout his life, there is one healing soul in his devoted friend, Kathryn Greenwald who yearns to be so much more.
In later adolescence, he is thrust into the maelstrom of university life in the wild-eyed, rebellious '60s. There he finds the illusory relief in his and his peers certainty that they will create utopia.
As that idealism is gradually ground to dust by inescapable reality, he trades his dream of utopia for the false god of fame. He takes on the raw power of New York City to pursue the adoration of millions as a celebrated actor.
As those dreams are thwarted and he finally returns home to family and Kathryn, he finds to his amazement the answer to the very howl of the dogs that once serenaded him to sleep.
