On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling, a New Orleans stockbroker, is adrift. He occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the "treasurable moments" absent from this real life. But one fateful Mardi Gras, Binx embarks on a quest—a harebrained search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin, Kate, and sends him reeling through the gaudy chaos of the French Quarter.
