The evasions of her little novel were exactly those of her life. Everything she did not wish to confront was also missing from her novella--and was necessary to it.

She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone face down on her bed and savor the vile piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequences to the point before the destruction began. She needed to contemplate with eyes closed the full richness of what she had lost, what she had given away, and to anticipate the new regime.

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

Oblivion seemed the only reasonable option.

Most of humanity gets by without reading novels or poetry, and no one would deny the richness of their thoughts.

Cecilia wondered, as she sometimes did when she met a man for the first time, if this was the one she was going to marry, and whether it was this particular moment she would remember for the rest of her life - with gratitude, or profound and particular regret.

She lay in the dark and knew everything.