When Claude Marchand first arrives in New Orleans in 1838, carrying the photographic equipment he's stolen from his mentor, Louis Daguerre, there is fever in the city:
I read in the French editions of the papers that the epidemic was in full fury, all that could save the city was October's cold. Almost half-a-thousand were dead. The papers claimed only the foolish or the mad would be out-of-doors at night, the time, it was agreed, during which the Fever was most likely to be acquired. The English editions, as I understood them, claimed news of an epidemic was a hoax, a lie, an attempt to slander the mayor.
Slander or no, yellow fever--called Yellow Jack by the local populace--provides young Marchand a good living; when he sets up shop as a portraitist, he finds much of his business deriving from memorial daguerreotypes of the dead. Soon Claude is living with Millicent, a mixed-race prostitute, but in love with 11-year-old Vivian, the daughter of a local businessman. Yellow Jack follows this rake's progress as he wins and loses each woman in turn yet is never quite free of either.