Reunion

Charles, a once-promising poet, is a professor at a minor liberal arts college, admiring of passion but without passion himself. Now living a desperately comfortable existence, he decides to return to his thirtieth college reunion. While there, he relives an intense love affair he had with a beautiful ballerina that forever changed his life. At times shocked, admiring, and furious with his younger self, Charles remembers contradictory versions of events, until reality and identity dissolve into a haze of illusion. Reunionexplores the pain of self-examination, the clay-like nature of memory, and the fatal power of first love.

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and educated at Princeton and the California Institute of Technology. His previous books include three novels, <b>Einstein’s Dreams</b>,<b> Good Benito</b>, and <b>The Diagnosis</b>; a collection of essays and fables, <b>Dance for Two</b>; and several books on science. He lives in Massachusetts.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>