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Reuben and Miriam Sassovitch emigrate from Romania to the promised land of the Bronx in the late 1970s. Crafting a new name and brimming with optimism, they enroll their only child, Elliott, in public school. Though a virtuoso in chemistry, his gifts do not extend beyond the lab doors.

His neuroses only deepen with time, nearly costing him his life in New York’s drug underworld. Worse, though, they poison his bond with a blemished, but magical woman he pursues across the world.

For Elliott, life is one sharp-toothed puncture wound after another, until a flicker of light transforms him. It is a coming-of-age tale, but one that weaves an improbable path. It is also the saga of a love not destined to be that succeeds.