The author of the much-loved novels The Object of My Affection and The Easy Way Out is back - with another endearingly disaffected hero, another disastrously dysfunctional family, and new territory: the battleground - and occasional common ground - of fathers and sons.

Clyde Carmichael is a hyperobservant, under-achieving teacher at a posh adult ed center. Clyde spends too much time obsessing over Gordon, his ex, devouring biographies in search of a design for living ("It's satisfying to be reminded that the most eventful and interesting lives usually end tragically"), and dodging his family: his maddeningly insecure sister and irascible father, whose days might or might not be numbered.

Clyde's on the verge of becoming as aimless as his handsome (and unswervingly straight) roommate, Marcus, a casualty of higher education whose going on the tenth year of his dissertation and his umpteenth doomed relationship.

Enter Louise Morris. Clyde's old friend and Marcus's onetime lover is a peripatetic writer and single mother who shows up with Ben, her son, and a neurotic stray dog in tow. The looming question of Ben's paternity is just what's needed to turn up the heat and give full comic play to McCauley's anxious, affectionate, ongoing fascination with the ties that bind - and sometimes strangle - families and friends.