"I'm beginning to think that love for me is a bit like Quantum Mechanics, something I know to exist, but have no idea how it works." For John Hansen, love is not only a mystery but clearly out to make him miserable.

A Tropical Depression is the story of, in Hansen's own words a "paunchy, quickly graying, miserable for the most part" forty-year-old 40-year-old man's search for love and understanding from two very different women. One is his terminally ill mother who favored his self-destructive older brother; the other a free spirited co-worker who is trapped by her feelings for an abusive...