A hysterical phone call from Henry Archer’s ex-wife and a
familiar face in a photograph upend his well-ordered life
and bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a
short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long
ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old-fashioned man, gay,
successful, lonely. Thalia is now twenty-nine, an actress-
hopeful, estranged from her newly widowed eccentric mother—
Denise, Henry’s ex. Hoping it will lead to better things
for her career, Thalia agrees to pose as the girlfriend of
a horror-movie luminary who is down on his romantic luck.
When Thalia and her complicated social life move into the
basement of Henry’s Upper West Side townhouse, she finds a
champion in her long-lost father, and he finds new life—and
maybe even new love—in the commotion.