Dupont Circle: A Novel

DUPONT CIRCLE is a vivacious comedy of marriage and romance in all its contemporary guises. Set in the nation's capital, it revolves around the city's busy intersection where old meets young, gay meets straight, rich meets poor, and past meets present. The patrician Allard family has lived in the Dupont Circle neighborhood for generations. At the head of the family is the eminent judge Bailey Allard, whose character recalls the colorful, iconoclastic figure of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. When Bailey's grown children insist that their father find a housemate to share the lonely family mansion, a young law student, Louisa Robbins, answers his ad. The May-December romance that ensues is as much a surprise to Bailey and Louisa as it is to the family. Love and family intersect elsewhere for Bailey, too: the District Court of Appeals, where he presides, is faced with a case that has particular relevance for the Allards. Two men legally married in one state have been denied married status in the District of Columbia. Bailey's own son, Jon, is all but married to his companion, Peter. Bailey is determined to do legal battle to ensure his son's future happiness. As the Los Angeles Times said of Kafka-Gibbons's prizewinning LOVE , DUPONT CIRCLE is a "sprightly, intelligent romance that has all the features of hip contemporary writing, yet engages in precisely the ways that the best traditional fiction does." With great charm and goodwill, DUPONT CIRCLE engages both the issues and the heart.… (more)