Washington, D.C., 1996-1997: German professor Dave Bell suspects he's Ungeminnt-cursed with the inability to love or be loved. Tormented by nightmares and confused flashbacks, he's haunted by a half-remembered clandestine mission in Vietnam and by the myth of Trion, the Greek demigod who disemboweled his infant son to demonstrate his ferocity. Dave discovers an unpublished novella by Thomas Mann based on the Trion myth and believes he sees himself. Friendless, Dave is betrayed by his colleagues and accused of sexual harassment. He loses his job, his wife divorces him, his children refuse to see him. At his lowest point, he remembers what happened in Vietnam: he killed a child. As he considers ending his life the way Trion did-by drowning-the illegitimate son he'd paid to have aborted, now a grown man, finds him.