Every Day

Richards avoids several obvious ploys in her first novel, a story of a married woman who has an affair with her former lover. When Leigh Adelman Kaufman finally hears from James Foster, who abandoned her and their three-month-old son, Isaac, 14 years ago, she again succumbs to his sexual magnetism. But Foster has ALS, a terminal disease, and Leigh's decision to care for him as he dies could have been the occasion for a weepfest. Fortunately, narrator Leigh tells her story with an honesty about sexual attraction, a self-deprecating wit about her predicament and very few soapsuds. When Leigh's husband, Simon, moves out, the three children--teenaged Isaac, eight-year-old Jane and toddler Daisy--are thrown into various stages of anxiety, anger, and resentment. Leigh's attempt to deal with her emotions, to provide the succor for Foster that he never gave her and to keep her family together brings other people into the story: her parents, a gay librarian who helps Leigh research Foster's disease and a gay couple who befriend Isaac. Richards reaches for the obvious in implying that gays have compassion that straight people lack. Her attempt to interweave the thoughts of 17th-century women whose lives are the subject of a book Leigh is writing likewise smacks of formula. She takes more obvious risks with conventional morality in Leigh's conclusion that it is possible to love two men simultaneously. Yet when Simon reconciles with Leigh and offers to let her care for Foster in their home where Isaac can get to know his biological father before he dies, this becomes a story of people who rise through pain to generosity, gallantry and the possibility of grace. Written with a keen ear for domestic dialogue and frank insights about women's inner lives, the novel will appeal to those who enjoy romantic fiction, but it should also attract readers who know that moral conflicts are multidimensional and not easily solved. Major ad/promo; foreign rights sold in the U.K., Germany, Holland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Japan and Italy; film rights to Warner Brothers and Peters Entertainment; BDD audio. (Apr.)