Charles Baxter

As a graduate student in upstate New York, Nathaniel Mason is drawn into a tangle of relationships with people who seem to hover just beyond his grasp. There's Theresa, alluring but elusive, and Jamie, who is fickle if not wholly unavailable. But Jerome Coolberg is the most mysterious and compelling. Not only cryptic about himself, he seems also to have appropriated parts of Nathaniel's past that Nathaniel cannot remember having told him about. In...

"Late one night, a man wakes from a bad dream and decides to take a walk through his neighborhood. After catching sight of two lovers entangled on the football field, he comes upon Bradley Smith, friend and fellow insomniac, and Bradley begins to tell a series of tales--a luminous narrative of love in all its complexity. We meet Kathryn, Bradley's first wife, who leaves him for another woman, and Diana, Bradleys second wife, more suitable as a mistress...

Bradley is the owner of a coffee shop in Oregon. He thinks his marriage is idyllic, that is until his wife, Kathryn, leaves him for another woman. One of Bradley's baristas falls head over heels for a girl who comes looking for a job, but his abusive father spells trouble for the relationship. Finally, a professor and his wife struggle to find purpose in life in the aftermath of a personal tragedy.