The novel was based on Donleavy's earlier work Fairy Tales of New York, a successful stage play published in 1961.

As a New York native originally from the Bronx he meets people from his past, gets himself into difficult situations with his landlady, his first girlfriend, Charlotte, his clients, dead and alive, and his co-workers at the Funeral Home and his boss.

After a while he tries his hand at preparing corpses himself, and his first attempt is greeted with horror by the dead man's widow who, making a scene, causes him to insult her and storm off, presuming that he is fired.

Cornelius, is, however, very adept at fisticuffs, and deals expeditiously with Fanny's ex-husband (who is stalking her), her doorman, and in situations such as when he is lured into a clip joint by a prostitute and has to fight his way out.

The end of the novel is populated by flashbacks and dream sequences regarding his rather callous farming out to a foster home when he was a child, to his early days with Charlotte in the Bronx, to a climactic pair of scenes where he gets in a bar fight and ends up in hospital, and later takes Charlotte to a fancy French restaurant and gets snubbed by the staff there.