The protagonist of this story is not a person, but a friendship among six men in New York City. Michael and his childhood pals, Ralph, Phil, Rob, Wayne and Charlie are a "family of guys" who are backing into their middle age like a wary military unit: their eyes on the past and their backs facing the future. Michael leads this group of "30-something boys" who have preserved their past with a devoted nostalgia that has kept the world at bay, until now. Although Phil has always been an alcoholic, it's now impossible to ignore his cruelty to his girlfriend Jessica. It drives Michael to organize an intervention. Phil rejects it, overconfident in the immutability of their friendship. Charlie is diagnosed with leukemia and discovers he cannot approach his own friends. It is a juvenile attempt to spare himself the pain and possibility of his own death. Ralph reaches out to Jessica and they begin a romantic relationship behind Phil's back. As Michael attempts to fix all of the holes opening up in their previously impenetrable world, more fissures open. The friendship that has held them together starts to collapse. In the story's conclusion, the reality of adult life (that it brings as many endings as it does beginnings) can no longer be ignored.
—Ralph Garner