Having met at Ithaca University as graduate students, the millennial year of2000 is soon approaching, Sydney Steinberg and Corinna Kipnis consider each othertheir exclusive significant other. While after graduation, Corinna takes up a positionas reference librarian in her hometown library of Thompsonville, Syd hastens to finishhis graduate degree in engineering. But after some irrepressible soul-searching, hedecides on a radical change of course--he will, instead, attempt that more challengingcareer in the New York financial world he has always aspired to, which, in his estimate, will not only demand his highest level of intellectual mastery but, simultaneously, willalso position him at the very cutting edge of significant decision making. This choiceand the lifestyle it engenders set Corinna and Syd on deeply discordant life tracks andtoward life goals that prove incompatible.In the meantime, Viktor, Corinna's father and now professor emeritus, hasbeen summoned to California for a hospital visit with his cousin and boyhood hero, Mitchell Kipnis. Despite Mitchell's palatial Malibu home, Viktor perceives Mitchell'sloneliness as a widower and retiree and convinces him that a prolonged vacation inhis old hometown--Thompsonville--is just what the doctor would have ordered.Additionally, Viktor reminds Mitchell that his son Paul, has just taken a position atEly College in Thompsonville and would be an added companion. Mitchell consentsto this transition and eventually becomes a thoroughly vibrant part of the wholeThompsonville scene. Inevitably, Corinna and Syd separate; and through this painfulprocess, Corinna actually begins to fall in love with another person--having herselfattained a depth and confidence she had never before realized. In this generationaland a career mix of interesting, well-realized characters, there are more than enoughopportunities for dynamic clashes of values and priorities--small-town community orbig-city glitz? Wealth and power or a dedication to personal development? Parentsand their children retaining familial ties between generations or opting to go it alone?Plenty of opportunity for second thoughts. And hopefully discovering second chancesalong the way, the reader might be drawn into some thoughtful reevaluation of his ownbasic assumptions. And that is, of course, the best of all outcomes.
