Julius Herz, having spent his life caring for his brother and parents, finds himself finally free at the age of seventy-three, and desperately searching for a way to instill meaning and joy into the years he has left to him.
Resigned to bachelorhood in his London flat, retiree Paul Sturgis unexpectedly finds himself in two relationships, including one with a separated woman he met on a holiday trip to Venice and another with an ex-girlfriend.
A lonely woman whose love affairs have led nowhere resolves to find something permanent. So when a handsome and wealthy man walks into the London bookstore where she works, Claire Pitt, 29, decides to go after him. Unfortunately, he is a cad.
An elderly man who has led a boring life meets a woman half his age and discovers real living. The novel chronicles the brief fling before his life returns to normal.