Jack Cooper is an unhappy man, mind, body, and spirit. In the blink of an eye he has lost his longstanding job to the economy, his mother to illness, and his wife to her secret lover. Beaten, broken, and crippled by tragedy, he withdraws into total isolation, narrowing his life down to the simplest of routines in order to block out the pain. His day begins with a strenuous workout at the Bethesda Health Club, his personal oasis where his mind and body can be free, and ends in his tiny apartment, where he escapes from reality with his books until he can lose himself in sleep. Nothing more, nothing less. That is, until he meets the enigmatic Mike Parrish. Stolen from the hospital as a newborn and passed around from household to household, Parrish has no official identification.
