Cheyenne is a wealthy former rock star, now bored and jaded in his 20-year retirement in Dublin. He retired after two of his teenaged fans committed suicide. He travels to New York to reconcile with his estranged father during his final hours, only to arrive too late. The reason he gives for not communicating with his father for 30 years was that his father rejected him when he put on goth subculture make-up at the age of 15. He reads his father's diary and learns about his father's persecution in Auschwitz concentration camp at the hands of former Schutzstaffel officer Alois Lange. He visits a professional Nazi hunter named Mordecai Midler who tells him that Lange is small fry.