From "one of our most gifted writers" (Chicago Tribune), here is a superb new novel that delicately unearths the myriad manifestations of extraordinary love between ordinary people. In vignettes both comic and sexy, men and women speak of and desire their ideal mates: The owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first wife seemed to achieve a moment of simple perfection; a young couple spends hours at the coffee shop fueling the idea of their fierce love; a professor of philosophy, stopping by for a cup of coffee, makes a valiant attempt to explain what he knows to be the inexplicable working of the human heart. Their voices resonate with each other and come together in a tapestry that depicts the most irresistible arena of life.