The lead character in The-Deuce, Tony or Thanh or "The Deuce," takes his name from one of the streets he "works" as a runaway teenager. His personal anxieties and his rebellion against his father allow the reader to explore issues of an average middle-class American teenager's identity crisis complicated by several factors.

Tony's father is of European-American heritage. His mother, whom he has not seen since leaving Vietnam, was Vietnamese. Tony's father is an attorney who provides a comfortable suburban home in New Jersey, excursions to Coney Island, education, church contacts, and other middle-class experiences. Tony, however, resists the father's attempts to be close and resists mothering from both the stepmother and from his father's girlfriends after his parents' divorce is final. Tony frequendy thinks about his mother, remembering both good times with her and bad times traceable to her status as a drug-using bar girl...