The story opens with the narrator, who reads about a boy named Sonny who got caught in a heroin bust. At this point, it is unclear as to how Sonny and the narrator are related. The narrator then goes about his day; he is a teacher at a school in Harlem. However, he cannot get his mind off Sonny. He thinks about all the boys in his class, who don’t have bright futures and are most likely doing drugs, just like Sonny. After school, he meets a friend of Sonny’s, who tells him that they will lock him up and make him detox, but eventually he will be let out and be all alone.

Originally, the narrator doesn’t write to Sonny. They only start coming in contact again, after Sonny writes him a letter. The narrator’s daughter, Gracie, just died of polio. At this point, we learn how Sonny is related to the narrator—they are brothers. They keep in contact, and after Sonny gets out of jail, he goes to live with the narrator and his family. They eat a family dinner, which then turns into a flashback about their parents.

The narrator describes his father, a drunken man, who died when Sonny was fifteen. Sonny and his father had the same privacy; however they did not get along. Sonny was withdrawn and quiet; while their father pretended to be big, tough, and loud-talking.

The narrator then thinks back to the last time he saw his mother alive, just before he went off to war (most likely fought in World War II). She told him the story of how his uncle died (was run over—perhaps purposefully—by a bunch of white kids), how his father was never the same, and that the narrator has to watch over Sonny. The narrator was married to Isabel two days after this talk, and then he went off to war. The next time he came back to the states was for his mother’s funeral.

When he was back for the funeral, he had a talk with Sonny, trying to figure out who he is, because they are so distant from one another. He asks Sonny what he wants to do, and Sonny replies that he wants to be a jazz musician and play the piano. The narrator does not understand this dream and doesn’t think it is good enough for Sonny. They also try to figure out his living arrangement for the remainder of his high school career. Both of these subjects lead to an argument. Sonny calls his brother ignorant for not knowing who Charlie Parker is, and argues that he does not want to finish high school or live at Isabel’s parent’s house. Eventually, however, they find a compromise; Isabel’s parents have a piano, which Sonny can play whenever he wants, provided he goes to school. Sonny, begrudgingly (but somewhat excited about the piano) agrees.

Sonny lives at Isabel’s and supposedly is going to school. When he gets home, he constantly plays the piano. Sonny, however, is more like a ghost; he shows no emotion and doesn’t talk to anyone.

It is soon found out that Sonny is not going to school. Instead, he is going over to Greenwich Village, and hanging with his jazz friends (and most likely doing drugs). Once Isabel’s parents find this out, Sonny leaves their house, drops out of school, and joins the navy.

They both got back from the war and lived in New York for a while. They would see each other intermittently, and whenever they would they would fight. Because of these fights, they did not talk to each other for a very long time.

It then flashes forward, and he talks about Gracie and her polio affliction. It was then that the narrator decided to write to Sonny. It seems that the narrator could better understand his brother now. (“My trouble made his real.”)

It then flashes forward to what we would assume is the present. It’s a Sunday and Isabel is gone with the children to visit their grandparents. The narrator is contemplating searching Sonny’s room and begins to describe a revival meeting that both he and Sonny are watching. There is a woman singing, which seems to hypnotize them both.

Sonny comes into the house, and asks the narrator if he wants to come and watch him play in Greenwich Village, and the narrator, unsurely and somewhat begrudgingly, agrees to go.

Sonny then begins to talk about his heroin addiction in somewhat ambiguous terms. He says that when the lady was singing at the revival meeting, it reminded him what it feels like when heroin is coursing through your veins. Sonny says it makes you feel in control, and sometimes you just have to feel that way. The narrator asks if he has to feel like that to play. He answers that some people do. They talk about suffering. And the narrator asks Sonny if it’s worth killing yourself, just trying to escape suffering. Sonny says he is not going to die trying not to suffer faster than anyone else. Sonny divulges that the reason he wanted to leave Harlem was to escape the drugs.

They go to the jazz club in Greenwich Village. The narrator realizes how revered Sonny is there. He hears Sonny play. In the beginning, he falters, as he hasn’t played for seven months, but after a while, it becomes completely magical and enchants the narrator and everyone in the club. The narrator sends a cup of scotch and milk up to the piano for Sonny and the two share a brief connecting moment.

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – November 30, 1987) was an American novelist, writer, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist.

Most of Baldwin's work deals with racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century in the United States. His novels are notable for the personal way in which they explore questions of identity as well as the way in which they mine complex social and psychological pressures related to being black and homosexual well before the social, cultural or political equality of these groups was improved.

When Baldwin was an infant, his mother, Emma Berdis Joynes, moved to Harlem, New York, where she married a preacher, David Baldwin, who adopted James. The family was poor; and James and his adoptive father had a tumultuous relationship. James Baldwin attended the prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where he worked on the school magazine together with Richard Avedon. At the age of 14, he joined the Pentecostal Church and became a Pentecostal preacher.

When he was 17 years old, Baldwin turned away from his religion and moved to Greenwich Village, a New York City neighborhood, famous for its artists and writers. Here, he studied at The New School, finding an intellectual community within the university. Supporting himself with odd jobs, he began to write short stories, essays, and book reviews, many of which were later collected in the volume Notes of a Native Son (1955).

During this time Baldwin began to recognize his own homosexuality. In 1948, disillusioned by American prejudice against blacks and homosexuals, Baldwin left the United States and departed to Paris, France, where he would live as an expatriate for most of his later life.

On November 30, 1987 Baldwin died from stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. He was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, near New York City.