The award-winning author of "Talking in Bed"--a "New York Times" Notable Book of 1996--presents a buoyant and evocative new novel about the mysteries of life in small New Mexico town. Birdy Stone spends her days trying to get her students to appreciate the beauty of literature and her nights getting high with Jesus, her gay colleague and confidant. But the desultory quality of Birdy's life is interrupted when she is asked by a middle-aged widow to edit the woman's rambling memoir Print ads. Author publicity. .