Once a gangly teenager in oversized clothes, Plato G. Fussell is now handsome and independently wealthy. But inside he's still a bundle of neuroses and anxieties:, including a tendency to engage in moronic word games in the presence of beautiful women. In the midst of working. on his definitive ten-volume biography of Millard Fillmore, Plato finds himself dodging his ex-wife, trying to please his demanding elderly mother by inquiring weekly about the state of her bowels, and attempting to remain verbally coherent while courting a young woman he meets after her errant Frisbee connects with his cranium. As Plato blunders on in search of true love, romance, and an acceptable degree of worldwide cleanliness, he discovers that loving someone and knowing them needn't go hand-in-hand