Dark Plums is Maria Espinosa's exploration of a young woman's search for love and self in Manhattan. Set in the late 1950's, Adrianne, a young girl from Texas, wanders the city and has sex indiscriminately with strangers. Her relationship with a Cuban-American artist, Alfredo, leads to further degradation as she agrees to work as a hooker in order to support his work as a painter. His treatment of her becomes increasingly brutal, and her suffering becomes so intense that she breaks down. But she ultimately emerges with the strength to leave him. This book has been called both "exquisitely erotic" and a "psychological tour de force."