When Professor Bill Ford lands a teaching job at Pecos College in the wasteland of West Texas, he is eventually compelled to confront the mess he's made of his life: his rapid departure from Dartmouth following a disastrous European experience chaperoning a Summer Abroad program, marriage to one of his gorgeous, much younger students, and the possibility that he might have a daughter he refuses to acknowledge. Bill's problems only multiply at Pecos, whether it's dealing with Al, the insane president; Tweedy Browner, whose voice sounds like that of a talking Chihuahua; Barry Luger, the hapless university attorney addicted to watching "amateur night" dancers at the Longhorn Café; Howard, the security guard who moonlights as a potentially violent abortion opponent. As his legal problems at Dartmouth pursue him to Texas, Bill copes with the complications as he always has--with alcohol, sex, and a manic prose style. Will his ex-nun sister get arrested for helping illegal aliens? Will his lovely, competent, indulgent wife remain with him through his tribulations? Will he be discovered in his office on the Interview Couch with the girlfriend of an angry football player? And most important: is the young woman who visits him his daughter?.