I was looking for a quiet place to die from lung cancer..........desperation I had been made privy to while talking to my clients.

I was looking for a quiet place to die from lung cancer. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning, I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain. A local real-estate agent ushered me around to six or seven brownstone flats and by the end of the afternoon I had rented a two-bedroom garden apartment on First Street, just half a block away from Prospect Park. I had no idea who the neighbors were and I didn't care. They all worked at nine-to-five jobs, none of them had any children and therefore the building would be relatively silent. More than anything else, that was what I craved for. A silent end to my sad and ridiculous life.

At first I didn't know what to do with myself. I had spent thirty one years commuting back and forth between the suburbs and the Manhattan offices at Mid-Atlantic Accident and Life, but now that I didn't have a job as insurance agent anymore, there were too many hours in the day. About a week after I moved into the apartment, my married daughter Rachel drove in from New Jersey to pay me a visit. She said that I needed to get involved in something, to invent a project for myself. Rachel is not a stupid person. She has a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Chicago and works as a researcher for a large drug company outside Princeton.

I had told Rachel my days were numbered. My lung cancer was in remission and based on what the oncologist had told me after my most recent exam, there was cause for guarded optimism. However, I still didn't trust him. The shock of cancer had been so great and I still didn't believe in the possibility of surviving it. I was almost sixty years old and I didn't know how much time I had left. Whatever the medical prognosis of my condition, the crucial thing was to take nothing for granted. As long as I was alive, I had to figure out a way to start living again.

I hit upon an idea that Rachel approved. Humble as the project was, I decided to give it a grandiose title -- The Book of Human Folly. In it I planned to set down in the simplest, clearest language possible an account of every blunder, every pratfall, every embarrassment, every idiocy, every foible and every silly act I had committed during my long and chequered career as a man. I would also write down things that had happened to other people I knew and when the source ran dry as well, I would take on historical events, recording the follies of my fellow human beings down through the ages, beginning with the vanished civilizations of the ancient world and pushing on to the first months of the twenty first century. If nothing else, I thought it might be good for a few laughs. I had no desire to bare my soul or indulge in gloomy introspections. The tone would be light and funny and my only purpose was to keep myself entertained while using up as many hours of the day as I could.

I wrote many interesting stories and howlers, about a dozen in the first two months. But even though I did my best to keep the tone frivolous and light, I discovered that it wasn't always possible. everyone is subject to black moods and I confess that there were times when I succumbed to bouts of loneliness and dejection. I had spent the bulk of my working life in the business of death and I had probably heard too many grim stories to stop myself from thinking about them when my spirits were low. All the people I had visited over the years, all the policies I had sold, all the dread and desperation I had been made privy to while talking to my clients.

Summary: The narrator was looking for a quiet place to die. He rented an apartment that matched his requirements in Brooklyn. Initially, the narrator was at lost as to his future plans. He had free time since leaving his job as an insurance agent. His daughter, Rachel, advised him to invent a project to make himself busy. He did not want to take things for granted and decided to write a book titled The Book of Human Folly. It will account all his silly acts during his lifetime and the follies of others and historical figures. The tone would be funny and light for entertainment purposes. However, he did face depression, loneliness and dejection as a result of his career dealing with many grim and sad stores.