The fates of three families converge in a contrived manner in the gentrified Upper West Side Manhattan neighborhood encountered in Mendelson's previous novel, Morningside Heights
. Charles and Anne Braithwaite are dream parents, but their eldest daughter, Jane, an accomplished senior at a private school, is miserable and acts out by choosing inappropriate boyfriends. Gabriela Leon, the Dominican woman who cleans the Braithwaites' apartment, falls ill and gets evicted from the apartment she shares with her high school senior nephew Andrés. Gabriela and Andrés move into the Braithwaites' spare room—supposedly on a temporary basis—and the love that blossoms between Jane and Andrés has a predictable outcome that's burdened when Andrés and Gabriela's boyfriend, Juan, are arrested on drug charges. (Juan was trying to scrape together the funds to secure Gabriela an apartment.) The third thread is mild-mannered Dr. Michael Garrard, whose marriage is being destroyed by an inability to have children. His passion is wrapped up in the Ecumenical Council of Religious Charities, always on the lookout for worthy causes—such as Andrés's case. The novel's anti–Rockefeller drug law agenda clouds the narrative, particularly in the novel's second half, when Mendelson's stage managing overshadows the lively characters she's created. (July)
