Now Allegra Goodman moves to the forefront of today's hottest writers with a work of equal scope and excellence, a new novel about a young woman named Sharon Spiegelman: one of the most endearing, exasperating, indomitable heroines in modern fiction.

Abandoned by her boyfriend/folk-dancing partner in a Honolulu hotel room, Sharon finally listens to the little voice in her head that asks: "How come he got to pursue his causes while all I got to pursue was him?"

Thus with an open heart, a soul on fire, and her meager possessions, Sharon begins a hilarious twenty-year quest for enlightenment. Each time Sharon believes she has struck spiritual gold she comes up empty. For no matter how hard she tries to embrace the strict traditions of various sects and great religions, her irrepressible self always comes through. Especially when she falls truly in love at last, and discovers, in a pivotal instant of choice, the real meaning of destiny.