Oliver Gold is a reclusive philosopher living in a household of females. The announcement of his marriage to a young woman of whom they have never heard causes inevitable surprise and alarm. He has been the mainstay of Janet Rose, of her daughter Michal, of her 10-year-old granddaughter Bobs, of Michal's female lover and of the Austrian au pair. His departure threatens them all.

In the world at large, and in the academic world, Oliver has been seen as a potentially great writer and thinker who perhaps has the capacity, like an old-fashioned sage, to offer a new vision for his generation. But Oliver nurses a secret ...

At first, his secret is known to the child alone. But his attempt to escape into a conventional marriage opens a Pandora's box from which many demons from the past fly out.

At heart, this disturbing narrative is a love story - the tale of a love which dares not speak its name, but which, once spoken, leaves destruction and mayhem in its path.