Mona Simpson s first two novels Anywhere But Here and The Lost Father won her literary renown and a wide following. Now in her third novel the narrator Ann Atassi has been replaced by a third-person narrator recounting the adventures of young Jane di Natali but the theme remains the same: the search for and the attempt to understand the absent father. This time the father is a millionaire biotechnology magnate named Tom Owens. Into Owens s charmed life comes Jane born out of wedlock raised in communes and now dispatched into his care by a mother who is no longer capable of providing it; Tom is far from ready for this responsibility. Fans of Simpson s previous novels will not be disappointed by this excursion into the cracked world of family relations. Simpson is an attentive observer and a fluent stylist but it is the element of subtle surprise that draws us through these pages the magnetism of an original mind that holds us fast. --Booklist