Franklin Swift was a sometimes-employed construction worker and a not-quite-divorced dad of two. Zora Banks was a teacher, singer, and songwriter. They met in a Brooklyn brownstone, and there could be no walking away.... In this funny, gritty love story, Franklin and Zora join the ranks of fiction’s most compelling couples as they move from Scrabble to sex, from layoffs to the limits of faith and trust. is about the mystery of desire and the burdens of the past. It’s about respect—what it can and can’t survive. And it’s about the safe and secret places that only love can find.