Buddy Bolden is a rather rough artist-type living in Storyville, New Orleans. It's a rough neighborhood which offers him a certain level of anonymity in his private life. For his professional work, Bolden is a barber, a cornet player, and edits a local gossip paper. In a neighborhood as active as Storyville, Bolden never struggles to translate the latest news from his barber shop into thrilling headlines. He's married to a woman named Nora and they have children together.
Readers soon learn that Bolden is an unpredictable, erratic person. He doesn't seem entirely stable, having disappeared completely once before and then returned with no explanation for his absence. When he discovers that Nora is having an affair with Tom Pickett, he becomes so angry that he cuts the man he's shaving in his shop. Naturally they get into an altercation, but Bolden wins. He runs from the shop and disappears, just like before.
After months with no word of her husband, Nora reaches out to an old friend, Webb, who works as a detective. He's known Bolden practically his entire life and eagerly accepts the case. He questions several people before hearing the Bolden has moved to Shell Beach. Supposedly he lives there with a married couple while he's having an affair with the wife, Robin. Webb even hears that the husband plans to do Bolden harm because he resents him living under his roof. Anxious to recover Bolden but unsure as to how to persuade him to return to New Orleans, Webb tracks down a photographer who is supposed to be friends with Bolden whose name is E. J. Bellocq. Bellocq and Bolden work together to persuade prostitutes to pose for artistic nude photographs. More importantly Bellocq is the primary artistic influence in Bolden's life at the moment, although known for his own compulsive and moody behavior.
Webb questions Bellocq but isn't satisfied. They argue after which Bellocq burns down his studio, killing himself, in rage. He resents accusations that his relationship to his art is one of cowardice because he would rather be with these women than photographing them obsessively. At this point Webb knows he's on the right trail and visits Buddy. Using Bellocq's suicide as argument, he persuades his friend to return home. Back home, Nora is living with one of Bolden's fellow band members, Willy. Since he misses Robin, Bolden quietly accepts the situation and moves in with both of them. He turns his attention to repairing the damage he's done to his children by leaving.
Desperate for an outlet for his frustration, Bolden takes up with the Henry Allen Senior Brass Band. He brings creative elements which redefine their entire sound, inventing their own method of jazz. Bolden is suffering, however, due to his intense creative process. Eventually he goes insane form schizophrenia and his committed to a mental institution. He lives there for 24 years before his death, working as barber still and attempting to sustain an illusory existence in his mind in order to escape the horrors of the institution. By the end he is buried in an unmarked grave with no one remembering him enough to attend his funeral.
