Desmond Bates is a recently retired linguistics professor in his mid-sixties, at loose end in his personal life and vexed by the lack of academic responsibilities that once gave rhythm to his life. He has become househusband to his entrepreneur-wife and minder to his querulous eighty-nine -year-old father. But as disconcerting as these troubles are, they pale in comparison to his advancing hearing loss. A source of friction and embarrassment, it is through his deafness that Desmond inadvertently becomes involved with a certain female American graduate student who seeks his support in matters academic and not so academic-- and whose unpredictable and somewhat sociopathic behavior threatens to destabilize his life altogether.