When Roz Rosenzweig, self-described spitfire and loud n' proud New York Jew, meets Edwin Anderson at a party in her friend's Manhattan apartment, she has trouble believing that the earnest and soft-spoken Nebraskan is for real. But Roz is quickly attracted to Edwin, and is more happy than stunned when their improbable courtship results in marriage. The unexpected good fortune of Roz and Edwin is punctuated with the birth of their daughter Miranda; and yet, as Miranda grows, it becomes clear that Roz's love for her is so fierce, so protective, and so singularly focused that it might crowd out anything else in her life -- including her marriage.

The ties that bind Roz and her daughter together threaten to strangle Miranda as she enters her teenage years, and yet the eccentric group of friends they attract, their powerful love for one another, and the brilliant sense of humor that runs in the family, allow Roz and Miranda? along with Edwin who remains in their lives? to somehow stay sane, even as they fight one another for room to grow. In this luminous first novel from the twenty-eight-year-old author of the acclaimed short story collection Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night, Thisbe Nissen proves that hers is one of the most genuinely charming, witty and accomplished literary voices to emerge in quite some time.