A thirty-year-old professor hates his roommate Piss-Ant, who constantly comments about having gone to a better university. The professor says he is going to kill his roommate but finds some solace while spending time with his cat W.C., who only eats live pigeons. Currently studying for a fourth degree in computer science, the professor dreams about leaving the South. Of all his students at the college he teaches at, he only likes Robby, a budding writer who can only write sentences and not stories. The professor and his other roommate Slater once saw Robby carrying a copy of a Henry James book, which interested them and made them track down his address. Since then, they’ve been friends. Robby spends time with the professor in the professor’s apartment, and the professor and Slater try to find Robby a girlfriend—even though all he can think about is writing. They try to pair Robby up with a girl named Maribeth, whose uncle is a writer as well, and bring Maribeth ten of Robby’s best sentences. She is not interested. The professor and Slater encourage Robby to continue writing, and they keep him from reading the works of writers who were successful at a young age, like Anne Tyler and John Irving. Even so, they still wish he would get a girlfriend, and they do their best to keep him away from Piss-Ant.