"Growing up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Southern California, Mia always compared herself unfavorably with best friend Lorrie Ann, who had a serene sweetness and goodness and, in Mia's eyes, a perfect family series of personal tragedies befalls Lorrie Ann and pulls the two friends in divergent directions: Mia to Yale and eventual success as a classics scholar; Lorrie Ann to early widowhood, motherhood to a severely handicapped son, and, eventually, drug addiction. When Lorrie Ann unexpectedly turns up in Istanbul, where Mia is living on a research grant, Mia must reassess everything she thought she knew about herself, her friend, and her perceptions."--