Our lives are often determined by a single, defining choice or experience. In Rick Robinson's case, it was his decision, as a teen-ager in the 1950's, to
join the Mormon Church. Everything that followed was the result-more or less-of how well and how poorly he kept that commitment. Six stories comprise
the bulk of this book-snapshots of Rick from youth to late middle-age, from different perspectives and points of view. The effect is discontinuous, and
sometimes disturbing. What's the worth of a life that's mostly a running away? What's the value of art that merely describes it? the fiction provides no
answers to these questions. It simply embodies them. Rick Robinson is not a made-up character; he's the author's fictive-self. In the seventh story all the
masks-and the gloves-come off, and some truths are laid bare, on the TGV to Paris, the City of Light.