Holly, Michael, Dashiell and Claudia are mortified by the seminal book their liberal parents Paul and Roz Mellow have written, a book that features tasteful pastel illustrations of their parents' lovemaking - and which has become a runaway bestseller. Thirty years later, when the children who have grown up in the shadow of these erotically charged parents are adults, and it looks as though the book may be reissued, we catch up individually with their conflicted, complicated 21st-century lives and those of the iconic couple whose marriage has not run as smoothly as it seemed set to do. Meg Wolitzer takes us into the heart of a family that is dysfunctional in its very own way but heartbreakingly familiar.

Meg Wolitzer is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Uncoupling (`tingles with playfulness and wicked observation¿ Independent), The Wife (`has you howling with recognition¿ Allison Pearson), The Position (`one of the best and most human books I¿ve read all year¿ Erica Wagner) and The Ten-Year Nap (`as incisive and pitiless and clear-eyed a chronicler of female-male tandems as Philip Roth or John Updike' Chicago Tribune). Most recently, The Interestings was a New York Times bestseller. She lives in New York City.