My Occasional Torment

Marriage is demanding, and after 33 years, Julia wants proof that hers will last. Everyone in Highland Park, Illinois, seems to be cheating, divorced, or widowed. She cannot forget the time her husband, Sebastian, a history professor at the local junior college, was unfaithful before they married, and wonders if she should visit the plastic surgeon to keep herself desirable. Compounding her fears is the steady stream of women students who have read Mitch Albom and Frank McCourt, and now want her husband to be their inspiration. In between her fears that she is not woman enough, or Scottish enough (she's three quarters) for her husband, she is also worried about her elderly father-in-law, who obsesses about gangsters; her 17-year-old son Roby, who is at war with his father; and their widowed neighbor, whom they all call the vampire.