Carter Cox is thirty-eight, a talented but dissipated freelance photographer living in New York's East Village with his sad dog and his bad habits. Though he travels to exotic places taking pictures of models and celebrities, he yearns to do more meaningful artistic work and to mend his womanizing, substance-abusing ways. He also tries to practice what he learns from his Buddhist betters but continues to carry with him his "seduction kit" -- a chessboard, cigarettes, a deck of cards, and a Cormac...
