Each day as he looks out the window, an aging bachelor sees a pair of young lovers meeting on the street. He "adopts" them (in a grouchy, middle-aged way), and when their romance starts to fall apart, he subtly intervenes to bring them back together.

The interventions don't end there, and later, after the young couple get married and move into a house around the corner, the bachelor meets the young man in the street while his wife is in labor -- and accidentally leads him to believe that the bachelor was also expecting a child that night.

He becomes friends with the young man, and for a year, he maintains the ruse of the imaginary baby "Timothy" until the couple's financial troubles gives him an idea: he declares "Timothy" dead and gifts them some baby items -- since Timothy doesn't need them anymore.

As time goes on, the bachelor becomes something of a godfather to their son, and often plays with the child at the local park.

Their make-believe tales are the beginnings of Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up.

Eventually, as thanks for all he did for them, the young woman takes it upon herself to interfere in the bachelor's life, and encourages him to see about starting a family of his own.

Because, really, everything he has done has been part of a mid-life crisis lamenting his own loneliness.

Someone who would like to read the story that first started the Peter Pan phenomenon.

In essence, this book is a story-within-a-story -- the "frame" of the aging man trying to hold on to his youth, and the tales in the middle featuring Peter Pan.

I started reading this without being aware of the extent of the "frame."

Once I got past the surprise of the meandering "frame" story, I actually quite enjoyed it. The Peter Pan tales are the best part, of course, but the frame story provides a lot of context for why those tales existed for the characters.

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Created Jan 08, 2020 at 9:30pm • Submit your own review...