Amid the rubble he finds himself clinging to an image from his boyhood: a model in a swimsuit ad, buried in the back of a magazine, who had beckoned to young Joel to step through the page and into another life. Aided by a detective who is more elusive than his quarry, Joel sets out to discover the real person he knows only from a fading photograph. What begins as a quest for an idyll in the New Mexico hills ends in New Jersey, where a rundown split-level turns out to be a shrine to everyday heroism and ordinary happiness.

Joel's journey -- touching, comic, and deftly observed -- over-lays a whip-smart satire of Washington political life. Mark Merlis's third novel contains an unforgettable new twist on the idea that the personal is political: clever, wry, and knowing, it is a wise novel that unashamedly celebrates romance, nostalgia, and innocence.