An editor at an independent New York press, Elizabeth Connelly sells the dream of publication to writers of questionable talent. Stories of real emotional depth rarely cross her desk, but when young Tupper Daniels walks in, Elizabeth is drawn to both the writer and his story, about a man in love with more than one woman at once. His manuscript unlocks memories of her own secretive father, who may have been a bigamist himself. This 1982 debut from National Book Award winner Alice McDermott is "a wise, sad, witty novel about men and women, God, hope, love, illusion, and fiction itself."—Newsweek