Twenty-one-year-old compulsive daydreamer Rudy Petinsky is the narrator of …and then along came Rudy. His voice describes his struggles to grow up and become a successful writer in a world filled with unscrupulous businesspeople, conniving relatives, and other assorted roadblocks. Rudy's quest for fame and fortune, including an unsuccessful trip to Hollywood, is thwarted by his own immaturity, by an unsympathetic publisher (Plaster), and by his own family: a domineering mother; an overindulgent father; a materialistic sister (Julie); and a boorish, opinionated brother-in-law (Leon), who is a successful psychoanalyst with writing aspirations of his own. As Rudy struggles to make a living at an insurance company, Leon's writing career blossoms. Leon's book, published by Edwin Plaster who has rejected Rudy's novels countless times, becomes a best-seller. A few months later, Julie informs the family that Leon is being sued for plagiarism and during the trial scene, Leon and Plaster are found guilty. Plaster declares bankruptcy, but Leon and Julie are thriving. Leon confesses that much of his earnings from the book were not declared, and checks himself into a sanitarium to avoid the IRS. Plaster phones Rudy to tell him that he has found a backer and is planning to publish a book based on Leon's life. Plaster wants Rudy to write it and makes a very attractive offer. This is not the type of writer Rudy had hoped to become, but the years of humiliation have taken their toll. He quickly sheds his idealism and agrees to write the book.. …and then along came Rudy contains hilarious, no-holds-barred accounts of Rudy's fumbling attempts at the dating game, his frustrating work experiences, his existential wanderings around Europe, and his pathetic attempts to write the Great Novel. His novel will prove to be the watershed between childhood and manhood - despite himself, Rudy eventually becomes the kind of person he least admires - a grown-up.
