Phillips, Arthur

Behind his hipness and attitude, Julian Donahue is going through an emotional crisis that started when his two-year-old son died of a freak infection. His wife, Rachel, reacted by vigorously cheating on him; Julian, meanwhile, went impotent. But his potency returns one night in his Brooklyn apartment as he listens to a CD by rising Irish singer-starlet Cait O'Dwyer. As his interest in her music and career grows into a full-blown obsession, Julian meets washed-up rocker-turned-painter Alec Stamford (who harbors a few of his own bizarre yearnings), and Julian is propelled to do more than mill around in the back of crowds at Cait's performances.

Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush searches obsessively for the tomb of Atum-hadu, whose erotic verses he has discovered and translated while an Australian detective tries to link Trilipush to a mysterious murder.

Arthur Phillips and his sister continue a mission to get a previously unknown play by William Shakespeare published after their father, who has been in prison for decades and is nearing death, shares the treasured work with them.