Mr. Porter and the Brothers Jones

MR. PORTER & THE BROTHERS JONES is a strange yet entertaining account of an eccentric man's struggle to reconcile the old-fashioned morals with which he was brought up with his own natural urges & the ferocious amorality of real life. Porter, a man who has an abhorrence for violence & hurtful behavior, has neither friends nor sexual satisfactions. Motivated unconsciously, he attempts to rid himself of what he regards as sinful in himself--above all, his aggression. He is tormented by an obsessive daily need to cleanse & purify himself. This is achieved by means of elaborate rituals which take up a great deal of his time & energy & prevent him from leading a normal life. To resolve this neurosis, he undergoes treatment with a cheerful & unconventional psychiatrist, Dr. Gertrude Katzenheimer. During their discussion, he sometimes mentions people & happenings which she suspects are only the products of his imagination. By chance, Mr. Porter meets & becomes friendly with the members of a family called Jones. There are four of them: Lilac, a waif-like young woman, married to Joshua, the stern head of the family, his brother, Jerome, & Jerome's angry & destructive wife, Beatrice. Mr. Porter becomes privy to the fact Jerome is having a love affair with Lilac. Fascinated by these people, whose unbridled emotions & behavior are in sharp contrast to his own self-imposed restrictions, he discusses the Joneses with Dr. Katzenheimer while becoming ever more involved with them, gradually finding himself at the center of a storm which engulfs the entire family.