<DIV><B></B>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV><B>A <I>San Francisco Chronicle</I> Best Book of the Year</B></DIV><DIV><DIV><B>A <I>Christian Science Monitor </I>Best Book of the Year</B></DIV></DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>Ann Drayton and Georgette George meet as freshmen roommates at Barnard College in 1968. Ann, who comes from a wealthy New England family, is brilliant and idealistic. Georgette, who comes from a bleak town in upstate New York, is mystified by Ann's romanticization of the underprivileged class, which Georgette herself is hoping college will enable her to escape. An intense and difficult friendship is born.<BR>&nbsp;<BR>Years after a fight ends their friendship, Ann is convicted of a violent crime. As Georgette struggles to understand what has happened, she is led back to their shared history and to an examination of the revolutionary era in which the two women came of age. Only now does she discover how much her early encounter with this extraordinary, complicated woman has determined her own path in life, and why, after all this time, as she tells us, "I have never stopped thinking about her."</DIV>