On Mermaid Avenue

A fresh and captivating novel about the extraordinary friendship between Edie Hawkes and Mona Rose, two young women who prefer to see themselves as girls. Acting your age is for boring people. They have themselves a grand time roaming New York neighborhoods, finding the divine in the ordinary and avoiding permanent employment. The men they get involved with are an odd lot ranging from a boy who refuses to say anything about himself to a Soviet delegate from the United Nations. For Edie and Mona, the best part of any love affair is when it's over, and they can re-hash it, laugh and chalk it up as no loss. But why then is Edie obsessed with the idea of falling madly in love with someone, anyone, who will marry her? Is this another one of her fleeting diversions? Mona Rose refuses to acknowledge that there might be some misery beneath the carefree facade. When Edie meets the man she believes will save her—"Save you from what?"—we wonder, along with Mona Rose whether Edie is going to abandon the friendship, or is this wedding just another game.