Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. This black, bleak comedy tells of parallel lives in Providence, R.I. The Dwyers are middle-class, settled, safe in their lives until the day that Adam, a lawyer, finds out he's going to die of leukemia. Skippy, Babe, and Lisa are young sociopaths on the lookout for fun and fortune. When the lives of these two "families" cross, no one survives without trauma. The result is a diverting gallery of grotesques and grotesqueries, a litany of sex, perversion, violence, crime, and corruption. Providence is a fairy tale with no Good Fairy. Virtue ensures no reward; neither merit nor normal precaution provides sufficient protection to the unfortunate Dwyers. This novel is breezy and entertaining, enjoyable even though it depicts a world that is chilling in the indifference it shows toward ordinary people's cares and concerns.
 "Providenceby: Wolff, Geoffrey")