John Whitman is an idiot. He's also a character who just won't behave. He kicks over the traces on page one, ripping out his non-profane, "marvelously alliterative expletives" as he rebels against his sorry fate. I mean, the man has nothing--no money, no job, no food, no future, nobody who cares . . . well, except for that bunch of bill collectors who seem to care way too much. What he does have is a huge mountain of debt, the legacy of his late wife's larceny, which he'll be only too glad to tell you about if you ask, maybe even if you don't ask. He also has a bit of an attitude. Can you blame him? I'm telling you, he owes so much money he can hardly afford to breathe. We find him on a journey in his nervous wreck of a car to a new town and what could be his last chance at a new life. He's going to live with his distant cousin, Shep, who called out of the blue offering to make a place for him. Will he find solvency and purpose and love in this new life, or just go tumbling off life's high dive into another monumental pile of manure? Surprising things do happen. He meets Jen; she sits by him at a public meeting. The woman looks good, she smells good, she seems like a nice person--so why is she sitting by him? Can he lift himself up enough to earn her respect? More immediately, can the poor guy shut his big mouth long enough to stay out of trouble for even one day? Or will the nasty tone of that letter he wrote to the vultures at the IRS--in lieu of payment, of course--land him in the poky? Or will the ramblings of Shep; who could be Albert Einstein's twin brother, the one who got the junk left over in the gene pool; drive him around the bend altogether? Then he finds Jim and Susan Swartzkopt nosing around in his life. He knows them, of course, from his checkered past in the submarine navy, but what are they doing now? They seem to know more about him than he does himself. What's up with that? And they do seem to care. A lot. Why? Well? Don't just sit there with your mouth gaping open; read the book and find out.