Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern
university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the
political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously-and much beyond his
means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his
convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or kill it, and much
to Ravelstein's own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire. Ravelstein
suggests in turn that Chick write a memoir or a life of him, and during the
course of a celebratory trip to Paris the two share thoughts on mortality,
philosophy and history, loves and friends, old and new, and vaudeville
routines from the remote past. The mood turns more somber once they have
returned to the Midwest and Ravelstein succumbs to AIDS and Chick himself
nearly dies.