"A romance full of luminous insights, brimming with feeling and paced to perfection. . . . No contemporary author writes with more power, more eloquent simplicity." -
San Francisco Chronicle "Smart, well-wrought . . . a tenderly orchestrated love story. . . . everything an old-fashioned novel is supposed to do. . . . It will provoke and linger." -
Chicago Tribune "Faulks is an exquisite observer. . . . The characters inhabit a setting so exotic and vivid, so correct in all its details, that it floods them with animating light." -
Newsday "When passion erupts, Faulks is equal to the task. His prose gets it just right. . . . He has given us three very real, immensely appealing people." -
The Washington Post Book World
"[A] thoughtful love story [and] a melodic mood piece." -
The Oregonian "Faulks has given us immensely appealing people, and only the hardhearted can fail to respond to their experiences with sympathy." -
New York Post
"[A] vivid novel of New York. . . . Seductive and radiant prose. . . . Faulks captures beautifully the cadence of the United States 40 years ago." -
Rocky Mountain News
"Exquisite. . . . Tragic. . . . [Faulks] displays to good advantage his considerable powers in describing the story's various landscapes." -
The Seattle Times
"Faulks' achievement is that he renders the period and places so convincingly that they become intimately familiar." -
Daily News (New York)
"Fans of Faulks . . . will find plenty of period atmosphere on which to hang their snap-brimmed fedoras." -
People "This wonderful novel . . . makes being a grown-up seem enviable, stylish, seductive. . . . A joyous book with a glow of pleasure." -
Book
In 1960, Mary van der Linden, a loyal daughter, wife, and mother approaching forty, moves with her family from London to Washington, D.C., where she escapes her narrow world for the larger issues of politics and the Cold War with the help of Frank, a New York journalist, who introduces her to Miles Davis, Greenwich Village, and adultery. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.