The saga of Cyn Augustine--beautiful youth, missionary, pop icon, wife, mother, and above-average swimmer--is recounted by the narrator who fell for her long ago.
This novel charts the winding course of an American heroine: Cyn Augustine, whose earnest Catholic girlhood and travails as a young adult reinforce her determination to "get life right" against all the odds of love, sex, guilt, pop stardom, and intractable time. As told by the man who fell for her long ago, her story is an episodic, tragicomic odyssey through the late 1960s and into the present day, from the shifting perspectives of characters who keep changing and revealing themselves to be our siblings, our selves, our souls. Some may view Cyn Augustine as a generational archetype, standing in for the restless self-regard of the Baby Boomers, but her fusion of grit and glamour evokes the most beloved heroines of popular literature, from Elizabeth Bennet to Jo March, Scarlett O'Hara and beyond.