My Life, Starring Dara Falcon (Vintage Contemporaries)

In her latest novel, the author of Another You combines intensely realistic description and an effortless command of mood to examine the treacherous difference between love and fascination--between what we know about other people and what we think we know.  Dara Falcon is someone other people think they know.  Charismatic and theatrical, she has no sooner arrived in a New England town than she is wreaking havoc in the lives of her new friend Jean and her family.  As Ann Beattie follows Dara's antics, she braids subplots and vibrant characters into a work that is compassionate, tartly funny, and teeming with life.