"This worthy novel may best be read as a passionate, sensitive love letter to the wounded city of New York." ( Washington Post ) Thirty-four and decidedly independent, Renata has always kept her involvement with others, particularly men, to a minimum-until she meets Jack. Sexy, solid, and patient, he shakes up her routine. Then, as Renata leaves her apartment one bright September morning and walks across the Brooklyn Bridge to work, the sky bursts open and the landscape transforms without warning. "The novel's most provocative aspect is its questioning of the ways public tragedy can inform and amplify private grief." ( New York Times ) "Poignant and powerful." ( Boston Globe ) "Schwartz's taut, insightful narrative is one of her best, a telling study of how personal and public grief intersect, and a dramatic exploration of the complex nature of language, spoken and not." ( Baltimore Sun ) "A novel of pain and loss and of hope springing from the ashes." ( San Francisco Chronicle )