Mike Devlin's life has leveled out onto a predictable plateau: he and his wife and daughter live in a large, suburban home where his days are comfortable and routine; his psychiatric practice is well-established. But when he opens a Tae Kwon Do school in a black, inner-city Baltimore neighborhood, Devlin becomes the ultimate stranger: not merely by virtue of his race, but by the facts of his life, which leave him feeling ghostly and ungrounded for all the privilege and solidity they represent.

An inner voice - "I cannot do nothing" - has compelled Devlin into a world whose desperation and harshness he can only guess at. But the brutality of the streets and a series of violent deaths and deadly misunderstandings shock him into seeing how limited his influence has been. In a complex, fast-paced narrative, several richly nuanced voices weave a powerful, deeply effecting story of possibility - hopeful and dangerous - between people whose connection is often defined only by its impossibility.