Dr. Barney Edwards and his wife Bingo are two of the principal characters in the novel, struggling to renew a life together in their recently purchased home in the hills above Los Angeles. Their two children are away in Carmel with their grandmother, but Bingo winds up looking after two other children, Max's clever and resourceful offspring, Ronda and Derek. Trying to prevent them from being put into foster homes, Bingo is not quite as unsuccessful as she thinks — the children are returned to their father, another eccentric, Hal Gartman, once an engineering professor at UCLA, now a crazy inventor, Barney Edwards is a very straight, decent sort of person whose inhibitions are finally overcome by the colorful and persistent Max and her friend Nellie, who eventually persuade him to disrobe and try the Jacuzzi Nellie has placed in his tub. Barney also eventually has sex with...