Rose Morgan, who still lives with her mother, is a professor of Romantic Literature who desperately longs for passion in her life. Gregory Larkin, a mathematics professor, has been burned by passionate relationships and longs for a sexless union based on friendship and respect.
Isaac Geldhart is a Holocaust survivor who, overcome by grief at the recent death of his wife, seems determined to run his publishing firm into the ground by printing books that have no hope of financial success. His son Aaron, who also works at the company, grows frustrated with Isaac's emotional decline and attempts to take over the firm. The resulting crisis involves Isaac's other two children, his daughter Sarah and his dying son Martin.
A man who wants to move on with his life by moving to California and marry his girlfriend, finds it difficult as he still lives in the towering shadow of his aging father.
High-priced call girl Lee Churchill, is examining her life via therapy "sessions". Her double life is unknown to her parents, sister and "straight" man with whom she falls in love.