"From the brilliant Kate Christensen, winner of the PEN/Faulkner award for The Great Man, comes another novel about women, sex, and the way we live now. As she did in Welcome Home, Stranger, Christensen studies the life of a fifty-something woman who's trying to figure out how she became the person she did. Julia Heimdahl is a writer in mid-career, spending time at book festivals and literary events, often drinking too much with men who say pretentious things like 'You're like Cordelia,' thinking this will get her into bed! Julia has had her share of boyfriends but is now involved with a younger man--someone who's actually nice to her. But when she goes back to teach at her alma mater one summer, she's confronted with some ghosts from her past who haven't completely disappeared in the present. Through interactions with some old friends--including a woman with whom she'd almost had an affair back in college--and excerpts from her memoir-in-progress, Julia comes to question some of those relationships and to wonder what it takes, really, to be 'good company'"--