Welcome to the world of the Electroencepalographer. Adam Turner is a middle-aged, married, Washington-based physician. By all appearances, he is a conventional and well-organized neurologist, devoted to the routine, clinical interpretations of EEGs (brain waves) at a university hospital. In truth, he is a fearful man, depressed and tormented by the idea of his death, obsessed by recurring and somewhat paranoid philosophical ruminations of his own wretched condition. Moreover, he sees life in general as a hellish experience. Turner seeks out extramarital involvement, but that provides him with only brief and unsatisfactory release. Confronted with the impending death of his close friend Jean, his depression deepens; despair made worse by a peculiar lifelong handicap—-the inability to cry.

During a visit to New York to see an ailing friend, the Electroencepalographer encounters Edna. He finds her irresistible. Their relationship transforms him.

Back in Washington, he is a changed man, buoyed by his torrid affair and the anticipation of its continuance. Then, the Electroencepalographer is asked to examine an unusual patient, a women who may even offer a possible cure for his inability to shed tears. .

His mind fills with thoughts of a joyful existence. He hardly suspected that his pleasure was probably too good to be true.

.