A vivid, gripping, emotional, and addictive read, <I>Sudden Rain</i> is also a rare and valuable time capsule: the long-lost manuscript of Maritta Wolff -- the author who, at the age of twenty-two, published what Sinclair Lewis deemed "the most important novel of the year," <I>Whistle Stop</i> (1941). <P> Now that <I>Sudden Rain</i> has come out of its hiding place -- in Wolff's refrigerator, found after her death -- it remains gloriously frozen in time. Set in the fall of 1972, the novel perfectly captures, with expansive emotion and cinematic detail, the domestic trends of three generations of middle-class couples living in suburban Los Angeles. A brilliant portrait of its burgeoning era, <I>Sudden Rain</i> also offers striking cultural commentary on our everyday notions of love and marriage; individuality, equality, and community; and the promise and pursuit of the American Dream.