Walter "Walt" Rawley

Walter "Walt" Rawley is the protagonist of the novel. Born in the mid-1910s and orphaned at a young age, Walt was raised by his Uncle Slim and Aunt Peg in Saint Louis, Missouri. When Walt is nine years old, he leaves Saint Louis with a mysterious man named Master Yehudi. Yehudi takes Walt to a farm in Kansas and teaches him the arts of flight and levitation. Yehudi and Walt create a successful theatrical act with Walt's flight abilities, but Walt is forced to stop when flight begins to threaten his health.

After Master Yehudi is killed by Walt's jealous uncle, Walt tracks down and kills his uncle. Walt then becomes an employee of a successful gangster. However, Walt begins to unravel when he witnesses one of his friends, a baseball star, decline in athletic performance yet refuse to retire from the sport. Walt, in...