Jeffrey Wiser wants to get a new apartment before he kills his bastard of a landlord, a new job before his blowhard of a boss kills him, and some validation as a writer before he kills himself. With his wife and little daughter behind him all the way, Jeffas year-long odyssey takes him from Cape May, New Jersey, where he has to deal with everything from a near-naked neighbor to a manuscript-hating bee, to New York City, where he is almost devastated by a newspaper publishing cult, to Dallas, where he comes tantalizingly close to selling a TV script, and then back to Cape May for a climactic hot-air balloon festival where his boss, his landlordaand even a man who looks like President Benjamin Harrisonaprove that the real mysteries of life are simply the unpredictable twists and turns of fate. And a little bit of luck doesnat hurt, either.