This novel is an acute, darkly comic portrayal of changing times and sexual mores, and the baby boomer generation in the shadow of mid-life crisis.Novelist Max Napier didn't set out to make a mess of his life, but if you choose to entertain romantic notions and a raffish self-image, it's always on the cards. Now on the brink of turning 50, he's alone in his little flat: seduced, abandoned, out of ideas and out of fashion.A chance meeting with an old friend arrests the spiral, but not all the ghosts from Max's past are benevolent and there are tricky curves to negotiate on the road to redemption and emotional renewal.