Benton Kirby is in a spot of bother... His life hasn't exactly gone to plan. This is hardly surprising, however, as he never really had one in the first place. Armed with a philosophy degree, a dead fiancé, a brother who drives Death around London in his black cab, and a girlfriend with a history of suicidal pets, Benton - ambitionless and emotionally disengaged - embarks, for no apparent reason, on an affair with a beautiful, sexually adventurous, Korean virgin. Following a strange snowballing of even stranger events, he finds himself, at last, exactly not where he ever imagined he would be, up a tree at night in the park with a hedgehog...