The genre of romance novels almost requires a happy ending, and Shields does not disappoint her readers. Of course, Fay and Tom get together. Of course it is love at first sight. Why not? It is what we want to happen for them, and sometimes fiction seems more believable than the disappointments of real life. If sentimental, it is convincingly so, and tempered by a wry, seasoned narrative voice that allows Shields to have some fun even as she chronicles the dilemmas of single middle-age. For instance, she gently rnocks academics (of which she is one) by having Tom attend a lecture on "The Ghettoization of the Single in Contemporary Urban Society."

In alternating chapters, Shields chronicles the lives of Tom and Fay through their daily struggles with loneliness, so that when they finally meet near the middle of the book, it appears to be destiny. Each character...