Description
Oliver Watson has worked hard to build a safe, predictable world. But suddenly it seems to dissolve around him; there is no one for him to turn to or share his life with.
The marriage he thought was perfect is over when, after eighteen years, Sarah decides to go back to school-to Harvard-to get her master's degree. She walks out on a successful husband, a seemingly happy marriage, and three children, hoping to recapture the youth and freedom she feels she has lost. His marriage over. Oliver must learn to cope with a new life and a freedom he never wanted.
When Oliver's mother is diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease and is then killed in an untimely accident. Oliver's father's life is changed as well. Braver than his son and with less of a future before him.
George Watson, at seventy-two, quickly reaches out to embrace new relationships and, eventually, a new marriage.
Ben, Oliver's oldest son, rejects his father and reaches outward as his parents' marriage dissolves. New elements enter his life: sex, romance, and the illusion that he is grown up and can make it on his own. When his girlfriend gets pregnant, he is suddenly faced with responsibilities he never foresaw and is almost overwhelmed by a sense of obligation he feels he must live up to.
Melissa, the middle child. unequivocally blames her father for her mother's desertion. And Sam, the "baby," is too shaken to deal with it at all. Now the only parent, "Daddy" must somehow cope with his troubled family even as he explores an unknown world of new responsibilities. new women, and new experiences that are funny, sad, touching, scary, and poignant, but always real.
Everything is new and different for all of them. Each of the three men must start a new life: Oliver in New York and then in Los Angeles with his children and his new relationships with women; his widower! Father with the woman next door; and seventeen-year-old Ben with his girlfriend and baby.
Nothing is as it was before. and nothing is as they once thought it would be But in the end, different is better . . . . . different is more . . . for each of them and especially for "Daddy."
