It's Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve -- five days from holiday Ground Zero, and Tad Leary, the most confused man on earth, doesn't know whether to celebrate or go crazy. He's just been fired from his teaching job, he's about to be evicted from his sublet, and, what's worse, at age 34 (older than Christ!) he's short, babyfaced, and still treated as a child wherever he goes.

Nevertheless, his social calendar is full, and in the wild hope of solving all his problems, he sets out on a daylong round of parties. By midnight he will have revisited all parts of his past -- from his Boston-Irish parents at brunch to a former boyfriend, looking as "glorious and golden as a roast turkey" at a fancy uptown bash -- and found some surprisingly bright spots in this darkest night of his soul.

A plum pudding of amazing one-liners and preposterous imagery, a comical and touching epiphany that will maintain its glow all year long.