In these stories, Boston vacationers invade a coastal Maine town. A murder investigation travels from Romania to Scotland and then to tenements in Newark, N.J. Advertising. A girl's pregnancy transforms the lives of everyone around her. Cultural and romantic minefields await girls and women in the 1950s and '60s. Interconnected stories portray a family living in a small ranching community at the foot of the Rockies.
Stories detail the power and fragility of human relationships.
Two Filipino brothers are adrift in contemporary California. In 1854, a refined young Englishwoman sails for untamed Australia. Georgia, an adolescent in Florida, is the subject of these linked stories. A young Irish woman yearning for her mother's elusive love wins the affection of a handsome man. Dubliners Tess and Mungo invent fabulous exotic and sexual tales about themselves.