Finalist for the Governor Generals Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Canada and Caribbean region)A Globe and Mail Notable Book of the YearFor years, Toronto stage actor Norman Bray has renounced all responsibility in the name of his art. Now, middle-aged, teetering on the edge of financial ruin, and clinging to the faded light of his career, Norman must answer to the bank, to the adult children of his recently deceased common-law wife, and, most of all, to his own illusions about himself. Making matters worse, Amy, his stepdaughter-of-a-sort, discovers her late mothers journals and the unhappiness they contain. Meanwhile, Norman finds himself embroiled in the affairs of an attractive neighbour, with unexpected consequences. Highly original, skewering, hilarious, humane, Trevor Coles brilliant debut looks at the precarious ties of love and family and the plight of a man who has reached the end of the line and has only himself to blame.