This is the story of Micah, a fortyish year-old man that lives in a basement apartment where he is the super, runs a free-lance computer tech business, and lives a regimented and predictable life. We see how Micah is in need of this structure, but yet his dreams and his visualizations tell you otherwise. When he is running each morning without his glasses, he believes that the fire-hydrant is a redhead child and that there are other objects that resemble people also. Then there is the dream of a baby being left at a store in an actual dream.
When a teenage boy shows up on his doorstep asking if Micah is his father, however, what Micah thinks is normal is turned on its head. He begins to examine his life, and his choices, that have left him alone (his girlfriend Cass of three years had just left him) and unhappy. This awakening, something that Anne Tyler writes about in such beautiful language, is how the book ends.
Similar themes as in most of Tylers books, this is yet another example of how living a small life comes at a cost.
The Source 4 Books 