'If you've ever been in a relationship with another person, if you've ever had a family, you need to read this book' Ann Patchett

Polly Solo-Miller Demarest is the perfect flower of the Solo-Miller family.

The Solo-Millers have everything: looks, brains, money, a strong, fortified sense of clan, and branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, as well as London, just like a banking house.

And Polly, along with Henry Demarest, a big handsome lawyer, has a beautiful household of her own and two nice, sturdy children.

But one day - completely unexpectedly - she finds herself entangled in a sweet yet painful love affair with a painter, who loves her in the specific and allows her to cry freely in front of him. Suddenly all the values she has lived by are called into question.

From Laurie Colwin, the ultimate chronicler of the human heart, comes a novel about a woman tired of being taken for granted - and a reminder that family, like happiness, can take many forms.

A W&N Essential with an introduction by Lisa Owens

"Utterly delightful . . . Sophisticated, funny, knowing,clear-eyed . . . and entirely affecting" - Washington Post

"Colwin writes with such sunny skill, and such tireless enthusiasm . . . One reads with fascination the steps by which lovers in one story after another stumble upon their forthright declarations" - New York Times Book Review

"Colwin wrings magic from ordinary lives" - Entertainment Weekly

"A writer whose rare gift it was to evoke contentment, satisfaction, and affection" - The New Yorker