What she hasn't forseen is that Jon will take her seriously—even the philosophical barbs she lobs at his naive assumptions about life. Could this "pass-catching, body-building connoisseur of jock straps," this Mormon boy on his way to a Utah college, actually have something under his noggin, she wonders? This well conceived and finely written novel traverses twists and turns and mind games that are all finely executed by author Michael Fillerup.

Michael Fillerup is the author of Visions and Other Stories and is a contributor to Bright Angels and Familiars: Contemporary Mormon Stories and Christmas for the World. He is the bilingual supervisor of the Flagstaff, Arizona, public schools. His stories have appeared in the New Times and elsewhere.