The Accidental Philanderer

Niels Pettigrew is a teetotaling middle-aged businessman and birder whose domineering wife has just died in an airplane accident when he encounters a Spanish bombshell who introduces him to a world of carnal pleasure. With his newly found appetites for physical fitness, creative writing, and sexual romps duly noted in a fictional memoir, Niels tries on his spanking new persona.

As Niels navigates through one-night stands and adulterous affairs, he crosses paths with a variety of women that include a backwoods vixen, a married fellow birder, and a writing teacher. While Niels immerses himself in writing and philandering, one constant from his past remains: bird-watching. As he journeys from the majestic wetlands of Spain to the Schuylkill River marshlands and to the pine forests of Northern California, Niels embarks on a quest to readjust his moral compass while searching for meaning in his life that will determine not just the end of the story he is writing, but also the one he is living.

The Accidental Philanderer shares the story of a widower who morphs from a teetotaling bird-watcher into a philandering rogue with a penchant for creative writing and a passion for finding his place in the world.