Escaping from the house of his Hoboken ward boss father, young Johnny Moran enters the world of Manhattan newspapers at the dawn of the 1920s, becoming a copyboy at Wilbert Grimsley's New York Mercury, where its philandering star reporter named Price takes Johnny under his nightclubbing wing as the Volstead Act falls across the country. On Prohibition Eve, Johnny meets the unforgettable Belinda Harris and her husband, a Wall Streeter with a plan for making money that involves Mrs. Harris's malevolent former boyfriend, whose escape from the city's Tombs prison Belinda helps plan (with Johnny's unwitting help). Against a background of government Palmer raids and anarchist reprisals, Ashes of My Youth builds to its infamous noontime explosion outside the House of Morgan. Looking back from the depths of the Depression, Johnny's memoir of love and calamity is an exuberant and painful tale of jazz age New York, Ashes of My Youth.