What happens when your livelihood and your love life collide? What must we sacrifice to reveal our own secrets? How do the stories we tell ourselves and others shape our decisions and who we love? In this, her second novel, Brenda Peterson creates full and gorgeous characters who confront disturbing contemporary realities of life, love, and work. They all must risk discovering their own darker sides: the difficulties of honesty, intimacy, and friendship; the problems of jealousy, sexuality, and betrayal.

A story from this novel, "Survivor," was selected for a PEN SYNDICATED FICTION PROJECT award and published in participating newspaper Sunday magazines nationally. Another story, "Mother and Maureen," was a finalist in the Nelson Algren Fiction Award and published in Chicago Magazine.