Provocative, insightful, and darkly ironic, David Amsden's debut coming-of-age novel explores the complex and evolving relationship between a boy and his often absent father, Joe. As the boy grows up, he learns to ignore his father's flaws and irresponsible parenting as Joe brings him along to seedy bars, drug rendezvous, and to all of his girlfriends' apartments. These moments seem to wash over him, but as he gets older he finds they trickle up to the surface when he least expects them to -- often tweaking his ideas about women and sex. Now a twenty year old living in Manhattan, he must deal with these nagging thoughts of his past, and the questions that refuse to go away.