Disavowals: A Study in Perspective, A Novel

"And you''re going to say ''it was good to know you'' to the guy in the sexy hat . . . the guy you were going to marry today?"

Promises, promises. Vows to do and vows to undo. A summer weekend in the Hudson Valley is supposed to be devoted primarily to the third marriage of psychologist Marguerite Ariston. However, a tangle of characters is forced by a variety of circumstances to unsnarl feelings about Marguerite and one another: her estranged parents; her reclusive half-brother; a teenage hitchhiker; her intended and someone unintended; a cigar-smoking midwife named Babette. At times the feelings run parallel, in very instructive ways; at other times they intersect, forcing reconsideration and reimagining. Is it all a matter of perspective? Maybe. Points of view? There are many. An arc of possibilities.