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A writer documents the wry and zany moments he's experienced growing up, traveling, and living with his lawyer husband in this memoir. Kyle Smith had tried his hand at writing the Great American Novel several times, including during stints in Europe and New York City, but the attempts fizzled out. Undeterred, the native Chicagoan moved to New York again and settled into a comfortable marriage with a securities attorney named Julius. The couple's house in Brooklyn was invaded by a squirrel that appeared in the cockloft, a protrusion on the roof that houses electrical wires and insulation, and it started trashing the kitchen at night. Smith's sense of foreboding and drama was quite well-cultivated, and before he had a full-fledged nervous breakdown, the squirrel was driven from the house by a Texan neighbor named Nicola. Julius, who "dexterously negotiates his own double life as a hard-nosed businessman and bon vivant whose tastes are better suited to Honor de Balzac's time than Justin Bieber's," left the banking world, and the two began a new life in San Francisco.