A novel in three sections about the life of Ruth Cole: her childhood in the Hamptons, her success as an author, and her experience as a widow on the brink of falling in love. The story begins in the summer of 1958, during Ted and Marion Cole's rocky marriage when their two sons die in a terrible accident. Ruth grows up in the shadow of the memory of the missing boys, about whom the parents talk incessantly. In the second section, the story leaps forward into 1990, when Ruth is on a speaking tour, and the action moves ahead to 1995 in the final third. This disturbing yet humorous novel touches upon the passage of time, the severity of grief, and a writer's relationship to her work. A New York Times Notable Book for 1998.