The story opens with Bambi, an energetic and clear-eyed young woman, deciding to marry Jarvis Jocelyn, a penniless and socially unadjusted playwright who is completely consumed by his ardor for modern socialistic drama. Recognizing his genius as well as his utter incompetence in practical matters, she takes him in, marries him almost against his will, and moves him into her scholarly father's home. Her academic father, Professor Parkhurst, is a man obsessed with mathematics and order who views Jarvis as a hopeless dreamer.
Bambi undertakes to support and manage Jarvis, believing that his revolutionary ideas will eventually reshape the theatre if he survives the initial collision with reality. While Jarvis retreats to the attic to slave over his sprawling, high-minded scripts, Bambi secretly writes a witty and intimate novel called Francesca, which fictionalizes their life and marriage. To her immense surprise, the novel wins a major magazine prize, is published anonymously, and becomes an instant commercial success.
Desperate for practical experience, Jarvis goes to New York to pitch his plays to major producers. He meets with endless rejection, struggles through intense poverty, and even drives a hansom cab for a brief period to survive. Through these trials, Jarvis is forced to shed his arrogance and learn the actual mechanics of the stage and human nature. Meanwhile, Bambi continues to guide him through letters while managing her expanding literary career under the radar.
Eventually, a top-tier Broadway producer named Frohman acquires the dramatic rights to Francesca and asks Jarvis to write the theatrical adaptation, entirely unaware that the mysterious author and Jarvis's wife are one and the same. Jarvis pours all his newfound maturity and repressed passion into the adaptation, writing daily letters to the anonymous author whom he has grown to love through their correspondence. The climax builds toward the opening night, where all the secrets are set to collide under the bright lights of Broadway.
