Patriarch, Henry Bosworth and his sister, Katherine, look on with tolerance and amazement as the carnal and tempestuous relationships develop between Constantine Abernathy-unkempt, irascible, and profane-and Bessie Gatto-widowed, buxom, and good-humored. Harold Fuller-handsome, mild, and naive-and Bessie Owens- divorced, sexy, and restless. The seventh member of this loosely knit family is Mamie's sixteen year old daughter, Lena whose ambition is to become a stripper in a Bourbon Street skin show. Helping to stir this family pot is Buster Bosworth, brother to Henry and Katherine, a sometime visitor, and part-time lunatic. This is a story, profane and humorous, of initial failure, frustration, unhappiness, and lunacy transformed into success, satisfaction, marital bliss, and sanity.