On the surface Herb and Lorna Piper are typically sunny 1950s American adults. Herbs sells Sudebakers to the citizens of Bebbington, a Long Island seaside town, and Lorna is his cheerfully coy and clever wife. Their story seems like an American myth: small-town origins, Jazz Age romance, Depression trials, postwar prosperity. But this book begins with the shocking, wondrous discovery, made by their grandson Peter Leroy after their death, "that my maternal grandparents were involved in--virtually the creators of--the animated erotic jewelry industry." And from that moment the story of Herb and Lorna takes on a tone of mingled awe and delight, propelled by a pair of secrets that dovetail, at the end, into a luscious and bawdy revelation.