It is July of 2000, and the members of the class of 1969 at Darton Hall College are having their 30-year reunion, one year too late. In this novel we meet several of those not-so-gracefully aging flower children, now shopworn and wondering what their lives were really all about. And as the reunion progresses, we journey back into each one’s life, to other Julys in other years, when important choices were made and paths were taken that could not be reversed.

While the story and its characters are a bit confusing at first, jumping from person to person so it’s difficult to keep straight who is who, who loves who, who is married to whom, that is all intentional, and its meaning comes clear as each person’s story unfolds. Because that’s what memory is like, not a smoothly unfolding continuum but a jumble of moments, the most important moments making up a patchwork of a life. The book feels uneven from time to time, or rushed, or as if some characters get short shrift while others – particularly David, who represents the Vietnam experience – appear far too frequently, but none of that really matters.

Because these perfectly ordinary people are, in the end, completely compelling, and so are their perfectly ordinary lives. Breast cancer, Vietnam flashbacks, jiltings, divorces, affairs, the stupid mistakes we all make and we all can relate to, are lovingly detailed. And these characters, despite their many, very human faults, are our friends, our spouses, ourselves – and all the more endearing for it.