Neil Klugman is twenty-three and Jewish. He works at a public library and lives with his Aunt Gladys and Uncle Max, as his parents have moved to Arizona because of their asthma. Neil first meets Brenda Patimkin, also Jewish, a student at Radcliffe College in Boston, Massachusetts, at a country club swimming pool, to which he has been invited by his cousin. Brenda asks him to hold her glasses while she dives into the pool. He later calls her, and they arrange to meet at the tennis courts. She invites him to dinner with her parents the next day. Neil meets Brenda's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin, her brother Ron, and her ten-year-old sister Julie. Neil lives in a working class section of Newark, New Jersey, whereas the Patimkins live in a large home in an upper-middle-class suburb. Except for Mrs. Patimkin, every member of the...