The story of Italian writer Leo's pilgrimage in search of gay love and, especially, in homage to Thomas, with whom he enjoyed the affair of his life. INTO SILENCE (the first of three parts) finds Leo flying to Munich, Thomas's hometown, and flashing back to his first meeting with his German lover—who was not a Whitman (i.e., promiscuous) but had an aura of tenderness. In LEO'S WORLD, part two, Leo must get on the road. Between jaunts, we get more reminiscence about Leo and Thomas (they fascinated others, we are told, because Neither of them fitted what was expected of a homosexual),
as well as pocket tours of Cologne, Dresden, London, Milan, and an account of a pre-Thomas, doomed affair and some anonymous S&M. Leo, after coming to feel that S&M is possibly the purist and the sincerest perversion he has ever experienced,' cuts to SEPARATE ROOMS, part three. Thomas attended the Paris Conservatory before returning to Munich; the separation of the two men becomes important to Leo, who wanted to go on being a separate lover, he wanted to go on dreaming his love. Leo and Thomas achieve a new balance; then Leo becomes ``in his own way...a monk, but later,
in Canada, finds desire again, and touchingly accepts his mortality and bids farewell.
