For the last nine years, Raymond Carey has been revising his doctoral dissertation on James Joyce. With the new budget crunch, he'll be forced out Berkeley's back door jobless and degree-less unless he can pull through and submit his dissertation by semester's end. Ray's professor, Dr. Hansel, agrees to sign off on the dissertation if Ray employs his powers of seduction to test the devotion of Grace, his mail-order bride. Ray reluctantly agrees but soon finds out Grace is a little more than he can handle. Ray's balancing act careens out of control when he discovers his girlfriend Holly has been seeing a rival graduate student, and Grace finally deserts her husband once and for all. Left alone, Ray and Dr. Hansel may just be able to learn something from each other. . . that is if they don't rip each other's throats open first!