by Joanna Scott
First published 2006
At a seaside wedding ceremony, an uncle watches his niece marry her beloved while across town, the bride's father struggles to escape from a locked bathroom. In Jazz Age New York, a young woman with little money takes job after job until she believes she has found love with her boss at a diner, only to discover how others truly see her. A successful businessman drives through the countryside until a flat tire forces him to stop at a garage, where two mechanics shatter his assumptions about his life. These interconnected stories follow ordinary people at moments when fate intervenes. A wedding becomes a family crisis. A romance reveals harsh truths about identity and desire. A roadside encounter forces a man to question everything he values. Scott explores how small incidents can upend entire lives and how people discover who they really are when circumstances strip away their illusions.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: interconnected-stories, ordinary-people
Setting: Jazz Age New York, Seaside
Period: Jazz Age
272 pages · Paperback · Little, Brown Paperbacks