Pleasure's Only Rule

Janet's choices affect her son Tom, a biology major who has moved in with his girlfriend Elaine, and reverberate through her group of friends: the flamboyant Maria, once Carlos' lover; her husband Rodger, an elegant Brit who is squandering his success and his luck in alcohol; Diamond, now too large to leave her apartment; and Larry who has buried many friends struck down by AIDS. With revolution fomenting in Eastern Europe and the Berlin wall being torn down stone by stone, the globe feels suddenly smaller and full of promise as well as pain.

Do we choose, or are we chosen?