Bartholomew Lampion is born in Bright Beach, California, on a day of tragedy and terror, when the lives of everyone in his family are changed forever.  Remarkable events accompany his birth, and everyone agrees that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen.

On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew.  He doesn't know who Bartholomew is, but he...

A New York love story as seductively neurotic as the city itself   At thirty-two years old, Lynn Gallagher is one of the five most influential contemporary-art gallery owners in Manhattan. Too bad her face is dead. Not so, says Lynn's assistant, but that is how it feels when she compares it to her stalker's face. Alan Morton may be a plump, goofy-looking accountant, but his face glows with life when he peers at Lynn through her gallery window. The...

With the same winning combination of humor and honesty that marked her recent nonfiction bestsellers, Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott's new novel gives us an exuberant, richly absorbing portrait of a family for whom the joys and sorrows of everyday life are magnified under the glare of the unexpected. Rosie Ferguson, in the first bloom of young womanhood, is obsessed with tournament tennis. Her mother is a recovering alcoholic...