"Verdi, the pampered daughter of a prosperous southern preacher, comes to Philadelphia in the seventies to enroll at the university and is immediately drawn to Johnson, a university student as well, though also a city boy, poor and militant. Their differences seal their hearts to each other until Johnson teaches her the one thing that will change her life forever - how to love heroin.

Enter Rowe, a conservative professor who rescues Verdi from her ugly addiction even as he falls in love with her, leaving his sophisticated wife for this very confused southern girl."--BOOK JACKET.

"As the novel opens, Verdi and Rowe have been living a comfortable existence for the past twenty years - she is the newly appointed principal at a school for special learners - but she feels her world teeter off-balance when she unpins a note from the blouse of her most precious student, her close cousin's daughter, and learns that Johnson is back in town.

Once Verdi and Johnson lay eyes on each other, they know that the years have not dulled their passion, and they skid uncontrollably toward the desires of their youth."--BOOK JACKET.