Dream children

Oliver Gold, the brilliant, ascetic writer and philosopher, has lived quietly and happily for eight years on the outskirts of London as a lodger in 12, Wagner Rise. His sudden decision to marry and move to America precipitates a crisis in his household of women, all of whom owe fierce, idiosyncratic allegiance to Oliver, and want to save him and their world from an unsuitable, inexplicable match. The cold and beautiful Catharine, Oliver's former student and a formidable philosopher herself, offers him a Platonic marriage of convenience. Michal, Catharine's lover, is a bitter, divorced mother…