Follow our hero, Rhys Waveral, as he bumbles his way through life, with seemingly no direction, and barely any desire to acquire it. This novel begins by dropping you into Rhys' childhood dreams and reality: at the age of eight he looses his one and only dream - to be a great actress. Then we find him years later as a not-so-great actor on his way to Tangiers to hustle himself to an aged Mrs. Rikki Lancaster. Hilariousness ensues as Rhys, his best friend Peach Delight, his accident-prone wife Adrienne, two too-bubbly hairdressers known as "Pepsi" and "Shirlee," a famous decorator who loves fruit and parties, and even Rhys' parents, the Brigadier and Lady Dinah, all converge to make a memorable story full of strange coincidences and even stranger discoveries. Will Rhys ever find happiness and peace? Unlikely! And therein lies the fun!

"Ree," she said, "what are you hoping to get for Christmas?"...
"I want a wedding dress," the little boy finally blurted out.

He had begun to feel that his character was nothing more than the splinters of a china cup thrown against the wall in a fit of pique. Some of the pieces had gone missing and Rhys now seriously doubted his ability to reform his personality. "Oh, well," he thought, "something will turn up." He was an eternal optimist.

"Will there be prizes?" Shirlee asked innocently, looking at Rhys. "Because if the theme is exotic fruit, I know who's going to win."

The Brigadier was in shock yet he knew, even in his state of suspended animation that he had crossed a frontier and had landed, via some inexplicable route, in his worst fantasy: his son's world.

"Where on earth am I going?" Rhys asked himself for about the eighteen thousandth time that decade. "The more I move around the more hemmed in I become."

And so Dorita was strapped into an enormous plate into which he had to climb like a tutu. Then he squeezed into a jacket of giant peaches, pears, strawberries and cherries. As if that wasn't enough he was fitted with a hat like a court jester's in the shape of a banana. Ashby, Mr. Maroun and his assistant stood back, speechless in admiration, as poor Rhys tottered around, lurching from side to side like a giraffe in the throes of death.