The magnificent conclusion of Maureen Howard's ambitious quartet of novels.
Maureen Howard is one of America's most esteemed authors, beloved both for the lyricism of her writing and her dazzling intellect. "The Rags of Time" is a moving meditation on memory and imagination that, in its interplay of history, politics, art and life, explores the very necessity of telling stories. Focusing on a New York writer with an ailing heart as she reviews her own history and the lives she imagined in her fiction, the novel interlaces the sorrows and consolations of private moments with the undeniable memory of the public record. The result is nothing less than a deeply profound exploration of American life.

One of the preeminent novelists of our time, Maureen Howard dazzles us with a love story of radiant intelligence and delicious wit. The exhilarating flights and emotional depths of Howard's storytelling balance the fates of two young lovers in New York: Artie, a bastard, perhaps "begot in the mud of Woodstock," now a boyish computer wizard; and Louise, a hot new painter out of the Midwest, seriously committed to her art. Their romance, seemingly shattered on the eve of the millennium, is played out against the tale of two old lovers lost to each other for a half century. As these two couples search through the cultural flotsam and jetsam for love and happiness, Howard spins a superb novel of ideas and transforms, as only she can, the dear Old Farmer's Almanac into a bright book of life.

Mary Agnes Keely is finally leaving home, ditching her Irish Catholic upbringing, her widowed mother, and the emptiness of small-town life for the chaos of Manhattan. Her journey will alter many lives: Lydia, whose crazed husband is confined at Shay Acres; Stanley, the dreaming commercial artist who brings his eager body to her virginal bed; and a ragtag array of artists and poets. Choosing her own way, Mary Agnes taps hidden resources in a gradual process of creative self-discovery realizing triumphantly that "it was no great sin to be, at last, alone." Stylistically original, laced with Howard's characteristic irony and sharp wit, Bridgeport Bus illustrates why "Maureen Howard belongs on any list of the best American novelist practicing today" (Robie Maccauley, Chicago Sun-Times).