New Year's Day, 1933 in New York City and Max Disher, a young black man, has just found out that a certain Dr Junius Crookman has just discovered a mysterious process that allows people to bleach their skin white - a new way to 'solve the American race problem'. Max, who is tired of being rejected by women because of his dark skin, leaps at the chance. After a brief stay at the Crookman Sanitarium, where he receives the procedure, he becomes Matthew Fisher, a white man who is able to attain everything he has ever wanted: money, power, a beautiful wife and good liquor. But as America becomes whiter and whiter, it gets more and more dangerous.