A day in the life of Ben Butley. But definitely not a day to remember for this T.S. Eliot scholar at the University of London. Let's take for example Anne, his already estranged wife: today is the day she has chosen to tell him she is leaving him for good, and for a man Butley despises, and what about Joey Kingston, whose close friendship Ben is losing, maybe forever today? Decidedly, all the odds are against him. Will Butley, the bitter misanthropist, the unrepentant alcoholic, the teacher who bullies his students, his friends, and his colleagues, in other words, the self-destructive nihilist, survive this horrible day?
—Guy Bellinger