"[The narrator] has had the good education, and also the good job. Together with his wife and dog, he lives at home with his parents. But then the lurid overtakes him--a chain of events that feels to those inside it narcotic and neurotic, like one long and terrible descent: complete with lies, deceit, and chicanery, and including, in escalating order, one orgy, one brothel, and a series of firearms disputes"--