If a young man finds his own father inconveniently ordinary, can he choose another? Jonathan Jaimison, the engagingly amoral hero of The Golden Spur, comes to New York from Silver City, Ohio for exactly such a purpose. Combing through his mother's diaries and the bars and cafés of Greenwich Village, Jonathan seeks out the writer or painter whose youthful indiscretion he believes he might have been, all the while committing numerous indiscretions of his own. By the end of the novel, Jonathan has figured out not only his paternity, but his maternity, and best of all, himself. With the publication of The Golden Spur, wrote Gore Vidal, "Powell's life and lifework end, and the magic of that period is gone - except for the novels of Dawn Powell."