The Jesus Year explores the space between joy and tragedy, happiness and despair, sincerity and absurdity. A husband won't throw his wife a party for her thirty-third birthday; a woman becomes obsessed with redecorating her familial cabin; a couple's west coast elopement turns dangerous; a father must talk his daughter out of canceling her wedding; a mother meets her thirtyyear- old daughter for the first time; three friends' lives collide at an annual Christmas party; and a downtown couple drive to a prairie church to plan the perfect wedding. In these stories, the banal details of life crash against momentous occasions, revealing what is hidden, and recasting what is already in plain sight.