Six years after Lev Livitski’s catastrophic break-up with sultry Angela Pizatto, he’s become a lawyer at a NY law firm. But Lev is haunted by his passion for Angela and by remorse over the collapse of their secret love affair. Doubting his capacity to love, Lev takes refuge in abstinence and isolation. Although raised Orthodox, he remains estranged from Jewish practice.

Angela has forsaken her Catholic upbringing, converted to Judaism, and disappeared into ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn with her new husband.

Lev’s resolve to remain a social recluse is challenged, however, by his encounters with individuals who force him to reexamine his troubled history with Angela. This cast of characters—a Black secretary, patrician law firm partner, Orthodox rabbi, evangelical Christian, Jewish feminist, Jewish apostate, woman rabbi, and even a milkman who returns from the dead—forces Lev to reexamine his past and start to put the pieces of his life back together. As he struggles to reclaim his future, he heads towards a no-holds-barred confrontation with Angela, who emerges from her ultra-Orthodox world to compel Lev to face her—and himself.

Besides reuniting star-crossed lovers, Lev and Angela, this sweeping novel is an absorbing exploration of what it means to live a religious life in modern America.