In the course of a few short months, Lawrence LaRose got married, bought a decrepit house in Sag Harbor with his wife, and lost his job. This is the story of how, while negotiating a cash-strapped, divorce-teetering first year of marriage, this unemployed writer and Manhattanite ended up bluffing his way onto a Hamptons construction crew in order to learn the skills for what became an enormous home-and life-renovation.