This is a very sad, very funny, very human slice of the lives of an all-to-human all-to-middle-aged couple, engaged to be married. Billie falls in love with Joyce with depth and commitment, following the death of his first wife Alice. His weakness is a voracious sexual appetite and abolutely no idea that satisfying this appetite with a variety of women is any sort of transgression at all. Joyce likes the finer things in life, has superficial tastes and goals, but cannot stand Billie's roaming ways. Billie, on the other hand, is a scrupulously honest businesman who refuses to compromise his principle to make an "easy million or two" as Joyce's son Roy puts it. Joyce? She could care less.

This lovely and touching book is also a bit of a Requiem for Kotker, who was suffering from the illness that eventually killed him at the time. The tragedy of death, one gets the impression from this book, is the incomparable beauty of life, as long as you don't take it too seriously, and don't ask too many questions. Because there are no answers.