July

"So you have to go way down to experience this. It's the dream you don't want to wake from, the long kiss goodnight. It's like the way you finally get close enough, and nothing is so very wrong after all. The patience and the smoothing over-that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a love affair and peeking out of the corner of your eye to see if she's still there."

For two college students, 1990 is the start of a new life. Their world is one of wonder, love, and sheer potential. Monica, the homecoming queen and captain of the cheerleading squad, knows that the future is bright and exciting. When she meets Peel, a self-destructive artist and poet who seeks a life of danger, she can't begin to imagine anything but happily ever after. What happens next is almost inevitable: a brief yet intense love affair that makes a lasting impression on everyone who knows them.

First among these is Zog, a longtime friend who would become the author of their unauthorized biography. Painstakingly researched, their affair comes to passionate life through love letters and transcripts of taped interviews, fueled by Zog's obsessive desire to know everything about what really happened between them.

Monica met Peel when she was twenty, and the world was hopeful. When she loses him just nine years later, his death redefines her world.