Knave Of Hearts is a visual memoir in which Danny Lyon recounts his adventures as a photographer. It is illustrated with his color photo-montages and unpublished pictures from his three classic photodocumentry works, The Bikeriders, Conversations with the Dead, and The Destruction of Lower Manhattan. Most of the photographic plates are color reproductions of Lyon's photo-montages, hand-made, one of a kind works which were years in the making. All are published here for the first time.

The autobiographical text tells his family's history beginning with the 1905 revolution in Russia, and covers the convolutions and unrest of 1960's America and the social radicalism of New Mexico in the 1970's, both of which he saw close up and first hand. Lyon's unlikely heros include Huge Edwards, perhaps the most influential curator of photography of his time, James Ray Renton, convicted cop killer and lifer, Muhammad Ali, who Lyon meets in Miami, and Willie Jaramillo, the star-crossed subject of a number of Lyon's films. In words and photographs Lyon memorializes the friends, family, and adventures of his life.