Commonwealth. Ann Patchett. 2016.

It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited and notices a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverley Keating, his host’s wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later.

In 1988, Franny Keating now twenty-four, has dropped out of law school and is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story.