A sharply humorous and fast-paced first novel about the effects - some predictable, some wildly unexpected - that an encounter at gunpoint have on a previously assured young woman. The gun is pointed at 21-year old Ellis as she walks through a New York park. Although she escapes unharmed, and without being robbed, she is left psychologically reeling. Over the next weeks Ellis keeps everyone at bay; the police, suitors who want to save her, and the university therapist who hints that her sweaters are too tight. But when Ellis accompanies her mother, a nurse, on a mission in the Philippines, she finds that life - even if held up - cannot be held back, and neither, finally, can she....