Thirty-five-year-old Elayna Leopold lives with her young family in suburban New Jersey. Working from home so that she can raise her six-year-old daughter, Hazel, while her husband, Paul, puts in long hours as a corporate lawyer, Elayna is typical of women who spend their twenties chasing dreams in the city only to spend their thirties chasing children in the suburbs. Yet no one knows better than she that life can change in an instant. Two years ago...

Borrowing its title from a William Carlos Williams poem, A Strange Commonplace lays bare the secrets and dreams of characters whose lives are intertwined by coincidence and necessity, possessions and experience. From the boozy 1950s to the culturally vacuous present, through the jungle of city streets and suburban bedroom communities, lines blur between families and acquaintances, violence and love, hope and despair. As fathers try to connect with...

With hits like Election and Joe College to his credit, author Tom Perrotta has established himself as a master of satire. Unhappily married Sarah passes her days at the local playground with her three-year-old daughter. When happily unemployed Todd (also married) and Sarah meet, their attraction is immediate. They begin a passionate affair just as their suburban utopia is rattled by the arrival of registered sex offender Ronald James McGorvey. With...

An African-American woman in her forties discovers that the unplanned life may be the best.

What if the life you wanted, and the woman you fell in love with, belonged to someone else? With her marriage troubled after her husband loses his job, Claire's friendship with a local police officer starts turning heads.