Jenna Albertsen, a writer, has just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction but can't find the thing she wants most, love. She is saddened that her stepfather, Ned Albertsen, who raised her and whom she adores, can't get his novel published. But she is also shocked to hear that her dear friend Maribeth has committed suicide because her husband has gotten someone pregnant and wants a divorce to marry the girl. She flies home for the funeral and is comforted by her old friend, Brian Bradshaw, who has just been released from the Army, due to wounds suffered in Alghanistan.