The main character, Mike Noonan, is an author living in Derry, Maine who suffers from severe writer’s block after the death of his wife, Johanna (called Jo), from an undiagnosed brain aneurism. Particularly disquieting to Mike is that his wife had just bought a home pregnancy test, but never revealed the pregnancy to him. Mike languishes after his wife’s death, and finds himself unable to write due to panic attacks. Fortunately, he has four unpublished manuscripts, and using them he keeps his agent and editor unaware of his problem.
