What is a man? That is the question twenty-one-year-old Alex, deeply in love with his fiance and earnestly determined to be a proper husband, asks his grandfather. In response, the older man draws upon his own life experience, psychology, history, and vivid imagination to introduce his beloved grandson to his own inner manhood. The resulting tale is an odyssey through 16th century Nuremberg, Germany, where the protagonist, a young G.I., encounters and becomes apprenticed to historical figures representing the male archetypes of Warrior, Magician, King, and Lover. The soldier who emerges from that experience presents Alex-and an entire generation of young men-with a clear vision of manhood in its fullness.