Chapters 1-2 Summary

Ginger Man follows Sebastian Dangerfield, a young law student from a wealthy American family, as he drops out of Dublin University law school, makes a mess of his early marriage, and drinks his way through the Dublin pubs. Dangerfield is a womanizer whose only ambition is not to work. He finds himself in squalor and poverty, moving to London, wrecking relationship after relationship, and finally discovering it will be twenty more years before he can expect any inheritance from his wealthy father's death.

As Chapter 1 begins, Sebastian Dangerfield encounters his friend Kenneth O'Keefe, a fellow student at Trinity College, Dublin University, in a bar in Dublin. Both American students are broke, waiting for checks from the G.I. Bill. Dangerfield has just pawned an electric fire, so he buys O'Keefe a drink. Dangerfield says his wife Marion and baby Felicity have...