The antihero of Dying Inside is the sterotypical Manhattan intellectual Jew: Woody Allen, Phillip Roth, and I'll wager, Robert Silverberg himself. But unlike those illustrious gentlemen, he is not a a very likable or accomplished character. He is a man of superior intelligence, but no moral substance and no character. Not particularly evil, but lazy and cowardly and totally devoid of ambition.

But he has one great talent: he is a complete and perfect telepath. He is able to read other's minds perfectly, not only what they are thinking, but the deeper, inner mental processes that lead up to those thoughts, processes even those who have them are not fully aware of. By using his ability to read minds, he is able to skate along through life, getting his way by...cheating. He always knows what cards everyone else at the table is holding, so he never really learns how to play the game. In spite of this great gift, he does not exploit it for good or to improve himself. He gets along barely, on the edge of larceny, conning the world around him.

Until one day, in his middle to late thirties, he realizes he is losing his gift. Slowly, and intermittently, the skill begins leaving him. Little by little he finds the thoughts of others harder and harder to penetrate, and what he can see is unclear and muddled. He slowly comes to the realization that soon he will be just like everyone else, and he has developed no part of his personality to make up for it. The book is about what happens to him during this agonizing period of decline. It is one of the most profound psychological portraits I have ever read.