At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.

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

These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light.

I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.

When anything can happen, everything matters.

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.

was it possible that i was, in the modern term, in denial?