A novelist learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently --- and soon --- in her ex-husband’s debut. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news --- she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains --- but the morning after baking mac ’n’ cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat and a game called Dead Body.

In this wryly humorous and innovative look at a marriage gone wrong, Hannah Pittard recalls a decade’s worth of unforgettable conversations, beginning with the one in which she discovers her husband has been having sex with her charismatic best friend, Trish. These time-jumping exchanges are fast-paced, intimate and often jaw-dropping in their willingness to reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. Blending fact and fiction, sometimes recreating exchanges with extreme accuracy and sometimes diving headlong into pure speculation, Pittard takes stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal experiences they connect with --- from the depths of female rage to the heartbreaking ways we inevitably outgrow certain people.

On a humid summer day, the phones begin to ring: disaster has struck. Chateau de Sully, a Boeing 707 chartered to ferry home more than 100 of Atlanta’s most prominent citizens from a European jaunt, crashed in Paris shortly after takeoff. Overnight, the city of Atlanta changes. Left behind are children, spouses, lovers and friends faced with renegotiating their lives --- the hedonism of the ’60s and the urgency of the civil rights movement at the city’s doorstep.

Mark and Maggie's annual drive east to visit family has gotten off to a rocky start. By the time they're on the road, it's late, a storm is brewing, and they are no longer speaking to one another. Adding to the stress, Maggie --- recently mugged at gunpoint --- is lately not herself, and Mark is at a loss about what to make of the stranger he calls his wife. When they are forced to stop for the night at a remote inn, completely without power, Maggie's paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But when Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it’s Maggie who takes control.

Five minutes before her flight is set to take off, Kate Pulaski, failed screenwriter and newly failed wife, learns that her estranged father killed himself. More shocked than saddened by the news, she reluctantly gives in to her older siblings' request that she join them --- and her many half-siblings, and most of her father's five former wives --- for a final farewell. As Kate battles with family secrets and lies, she discovers that she has more in common with her late father than she ever had expected.

Sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell is missing. And the neighborhood boys she's left behind are caught forever in the heady current of her absence. As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows, and the boys still long for her.