Welcome to Soul City, where roses bloom in the cracks of the sidewalk, musical genres become political platforms, and children use their allowance money to buy records from the Vinyl Man. It's an unusually peaceful and magical American community with a strong heritage and sense of unity--at least, that's how journalist Cadillac Jackson first finds it when he visits the city for a magazine story. It isn't long before a mayoral campaign turns hostile; Cadillac falls hard for Mahogany Sunflower and is taught how to shed his embattled African-American identity so that he, too, might become a resident of this fabled city. What he discovers reveals as much about himself as it does about human nature and the meaning of race in America.