A successful artist is expected to give his or her all for ''the work.'' The linked stories in this book challenge the reader to determine if the work is worth the pain often visited on those who share an artist's life. A married children's book illustrator falls in love with a photorealist refugee. Their daughter, a blocked poet, becomes infatuated with a young painter with whom she shares a palpable bond. And this young painter, dumped by his girlfriend and tired of the hustle, envisions settling down with his widowed stepmother in the house where he grew up. Whether in a college town in Pennsylvania, a loft in Brooklyn, or a ramshackle cottage on the Carolina coast, these stories explore, over a thirty-year span, how the choices the characters make shape those they love in ways they never anticipate, down through the generations.--Publisher's description