Midway through the journey of his life, Professor Bill Baker finds himself alone-recently divorced, actually-in a dark plague descending on humanity. But life or at least the turning in of grades must go on, and lacking a villa in the countryside to withdraw to, he dons his mask and strides forward into the new life of acquiring a cat, teaching through a computer screen, and flailing about in search of connection at a social distance. Join him as he descends into the torments of a hookup, the evil ditches of on-line dating, and the bureaucracy of a pet store, purges himself of stale hopes and loves lost, and arrives at last in a state of grace-otherwise known as having a kitten sitting on him-with his own Beatrice opening a vision of a new star.