Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach.

This is the pain-pleasure of having newly adult children; they're innocent and ruthless in forgetting their sweet old dependence.

There's a taste in the air, sweet and vaguely antiseptic, that reminds him of his teenage years in these streets, and of a general state of longing, a hunger for life to begin that from this distance seems like happiness.

Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information.

Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience.

Not everything people did could be in a correct, logical order, especially when they were alone.

This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing.