Thriller starring Karen Black.

Johnny Suede (Brad Pitt) longs to be a teen-age idol like Ricky Nelson. He has a pair of black suede shoes, an impressive pompadour, a guitar, and some pals who will play backup for him. Yet he doesn't have much talent or drive.

Leonard Schiller once counted among New York's literary lions, but illness and ten years of writer's block have lowered his profile, almost to the point of obscurity. When Heather Wolfe, an ambitious literature major, asks to interview him for her thesis on his work, her interest forces him to address the issues that he has avoided all these years, and stirs in him feelings he has long forgotten, much to his daughter's consternation.