Life Is Everywhere

How could he even survive, Sand Hargrove asked himself, when his longtime partner, Lafay, was moving a thousand miles away, from Iowa to Louisiana, with their three-year-old son, Joby? Still aching from his little girl's crib death five years before, Sand was constantly fearful that something equally terrible might harm his beloved son. When they're gone, Sand tries to distract himself by seeking love or sympathy from Rainy Mountain Cohen - a sexy, famous, wildly experienced author and artist - and her beautiful red-haired sidekick, Fletcher, while at the same time working on a feature-length film. Meanwhile, the precocious diary entries of 16-year-old Rilla Ochelmeier (forming a coming-of-age story) show her looking for love in her own way, and trying not to hate her mom. Her mom, Ellie, Lafay's best friend, is married to a man she doesn't love; she is obsessed with his older brother, Blake. Ellie's ex, Rilla's 72-year-old father, is a former priest who's become a militant atheist. To Sand, Rilla seems the bright, lovely girl his baby daughter would have grown up to be. When she's almost killed in a fire, he puts his own life at risk to save her.