After Harry Met Sally

The parental investigations of a young man who never knew his father and only knew his mother on a first-name basis "Harry" met "Sally" - their names changed to protect the guilty - on a blind date in 1969 that culminated in an inebriated coupling in the back seat of an Oldsmobile at a drive-in movie theater. Nine months after this first and only date, Sally gave birth to Joseph. After Harry met Sally, then, is the story of Joseph's growing up, a compelling confession of a tortured young man struggling to understand his brilliant, driven, but self-destructive mother and to come to grips with the mystery of Harry, who disappeared when he learned of Sally's "family way."

Joseph's "good fortune," he tells the reader at the beginning of his narrative, was to have a mother and father whose long lives of "misbehaving" act out a fascinating drama with an emotional wallop. The careers of Harry and Sally, as captured by their son, compose a chronicle of disillusionment and deviance-a droll and sardonic commentary on the darkness that makes its mark on the modern world.

After Harry met Sally is the sequel to Toward the Bad I Keep on Turning.