Darryl Cook is a cuckold, and that’s exactly how he likes it. He has an inheritance that spares him from work, a manageable and seemingly consequence-free drug habit, and a lovely wife called Mindy who’s generally game for anything—and for as much of it as she can get. But after an accidental overdose and some serious over-sharing, Darryl’s world begins to crack up.

Tormented by what seems to be the secret truth in sex, and less assured of that secret’s form, Darryl steps into what used to be called real life, as he embarks on a serious if stumbling assessment of himself, and the libertines, lovers and others who make up his world: Bill, a man among men and the last good one; Kit, a good-natured and practical lesbian; Greg, the bully turned bull; Oothoon, his trans poet pen-pal; a polyamorous pair of expert meditators called Satori and Moonbeam; a hamburger; a drop of water; and Clive, an ersatz Englishman, ersatz psychologist, and perhaps an ersatz human being.

Darryl is a disarmingly funny and unabashedly intelligent look at a community of people parsing masculinity, marriage, sex (and love) on their own terms.