Four people in the search for love, restricted by society, circumstances and actual confinement - and bound to each other by an ailment. The book was in parts hard to read. Nothing graphical, but T. C. Boyle's description did everything to fan a vivid imagination. In parts it was comical, when the captive tried to escape its situation. But mostly it was tragic: the longing for change, the limitations of methods, the dreams that can't be made true.