American Heaven

Irena Bozinska, a mathematician who has emigrated to the U.S. from postcommunist Poland, works as a home attendant for retired jazz musician Harrison Waters. In the laundry room of her building, she meets Elizabeth O'Connor, another attendant, whose employer and ""sugar daddy"" is Jack Kaufman, a rich, dying Chicago gangster. Eventually, all four become involved in one another's lives, and numerous mathematical possibilities present themselves as they search for heaven in America. The action goes back and forth in time, and several generations make appearances (e.g., Elizabeth and Jack's grandson, for instance, who is filming and recording his grandfather's life story). Chernoff (Signs of Devotion) extends herself in this ambitious novel, with meticulous attention to detail, a variety of distinct narrative voices and the ability to make readers care about her characters. Will Irena's lonely, widowed mother be able to maintain her tenuous tie to Irena's selfish mathematician boyfriend through a cat? How long will Jack's rich memories (of his Chicago boyhood as a soldier in the underworld and his childhood sweetheart wife) sustain him in his fight against cancer? Though each character winds up with a solution to his or her problem, Chernoff's implicit question still remains: What would have happened if they each had made other choices? (May)