Assisted Loving

Joe Morris is eighty, and a few months after his wife's death he has concluded that if his worn-out hip can be replaced, his lonely life can be too. His son Bob, a man whose own romantic history is a mess, thinks the scheme is ridiculous at first. Bob's doubt gradually gives way to full participation. He starts combing the personal ads, vetting the women who respond, tagging along on outings, and advising his determined, quirky father on how to behave on a date.

The book follows this odd partnership through a year of courtship. It is a memoir about two very different men, a parent who refuses to slow down and a grown child who must learn to keep up, and about the surprising ways their roles reverse along the way. The story is told with a light, affectionate, comic touch, and it moves between the absurd details of the search and the real tenderness between father and son.