"I'm quite happy to rattle off their name, their shoe size, the color of their hair, and let genius and instinct take it from there." Little does the writer suspect where this laissez-faire policy toward his characters will lead him. Colleagues Martin Oxford and Josh Waterford have the bright idea to take their families on a break together to a remote farm in Devon. As they and their bewildered narrator soon discover, the Oxfords' idea of a gratifying leisure pursuit differs--mortifyingly--from the more staid Waterfords'. Only the Oxfords' excitable Labrador is really having any fun, amusing himself by harassing Sammy, the decrepit but wise farmyard cat. Meanwhile, Sammy's owners have problems of their own. But as relations among the three families reach a crescendo of embarrassment, resentment, and mutual distaste, a certain cat and dog seem to have established their own sort of peace. This brilliantly assured, riotously funny novel takes on sexual politics, social mores, and the changing countryside.