Miles McCarthy is a failure-a fifty-year-old casualty of the counter-culture, a castaway stranded in a world turned vulgar and brutal. Divorced, childless, disenchanted, and living alone on his boat in a run-down marina on San Francisco Bay. On the morning he loses his job he decides to end his life, but before he can carry out his plan he is visited by a friend he has not seen in almost thirty years. By means of a wager, his friend persuades Miles...