Drinking up the Sea contains six novels subtitled "A Hurley Hexalogy." Included are "The Last Existentialist," in which a ninety-year-old philosopher is on his way to accept an award; "Auteur," the story of boy meets girl as interpreted by an art cinema director; "Villas and Horizons," where an obscure copywriter compares his visions with those of Nietzsche and Tiberius; "Under the Greywacke Arch," wherein the search for the meaning of aesthetics is interrupted by visits from tiny characters out of our cultural past; "Smudge," showing how distinct pairs of philosophical concepts can be merged; and "Walking in Beauty," a guide of the bleak aesthetics of one of the nation's oldest cities.