Renowned classics professor Roberta Greaves finds her perfect life shattered by her husband's suicide and the huge gambling debts he has left behind. Grief-stricken and angry, Roberta must find a way to pay those debts. Remembering a particularly racy story from Ovid's Metamorphosis, she decides to write an erotic novel, using a penname because she is worried that her career will suffer if her real identity is discovered. Drama critic John Schubert suspects the truth. Eager to bring Roberta down in revenge for some comments she once made, he finds an opportunity when he spots her with her publisher, who is well-known for the erotic literature he publishes. Meantime, Roberta hears some dirt about Schubert from the street kids with whom she does poetry workshops at a drop-in centre. Roberta's life is now a mess of potential blackmail and intrigue. What's more, she learns an unpleasant truth about her "Daddy," a doctor whose memory she has always revered. Despite her life having been derailed by sudden catastrophe, Roberta is able to face her bruised world and move forward as a better human being.