Sam's crossing

Sam's Crossing is a tremendously appealing first novel, a book of vibrant characters and great good humor. Set in Atlanta, the pulse center of the New South, it has already won the acclaim of other writers and should please readers in every section of the country. Our two principals are Kate and Sam. She works in the neonatal unit of a hospital. Day in, day out, Kate has to cope with ailing infants, upset and sometimes grieving parents, truly serious matters. Sam, meanwhile, works in a local bookstore. He has vague ambitions to write but seems content to float in the congenial, undemanding low-key world of book displays, author signings, and customer requests. But now, after four years together, Kate wants something more. She wants marriage, a baby, "a lifetime commitment, a love that [is] thorough and expansive." Sam genuinely wants to give her all these things and more - but the only thing he is confident about is his "uncanny ability to make a mess of things." So Kate moves out, and the two of them are sent off down a bumpy, zigzag path filled with uncertainties. Will she come back? How will he survive without her? Who is the red-haired woman who keeps putting the moves on him when he least expects her? And, just as important, who gets to receive the really good books at the bookstore and who has to shelve Rosemary Rogers? Decent in their concern for each other even as they are bewildered by the complications and distractions of love, Kate and Sam are a thoroughly beguiling and convincing couple. And their story, told with what Reynolds Price has called "masterly ease," is a wonderful, often hilarious up-to-the-minute romance.