Unemployed and homeless after being dumped by his girlfriend, perpetual graduate student Joseph Geist answers a strange ad for a companion conversationalist and enters the world of Alma Spielman, who poses a fateful challenge.

"In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a social circle of lovers and friends navigate tangled webs of connection as they try to figure out what they want, and who they are"--

"A novel about a young Chinese woman whose graduate studies in chemistry go off track and lead her to discover the truths about her goals and desires"--

"A novel of rare emotional power that excavates the social intricacies of a late-summer weekend -- and a lifetime of buried pain. Almost everything about Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a biochem degree. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends -- some dating each other,...

Hosting a Spanish playwright during a graduate student's production of his play, Meg, eight-and-a-half months pregnant with twins, is on the case when the department dean cancels the play and is promptly found murdered.