Professor Lawrence Wetherhold might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant - but when it comes to problem solving the conundrums of love and family, he's as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His collegiate son won't confide in him, his teenaged daughter is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad's misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne-er-do-well brother has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can't seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he's an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time he accidentally encounters his former student Janet, the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking consequences for himself and everyone around him.