American Heaven

When mathematician Irena Bozinska tires of life in post-Communist Poland, she leaves for America, where she finds work as the paid companion of Harrison Waters, an elderly black pianist. Her best friend is Elizabeth O'Conner, nurse and bed companion to Jack Kaufman, a gangster and real estate mogul who lives next door. Bozinska may be the center of the story, but Kaufman is its heart. In Kaufman, Chernoff (whose earlier works include Bop, Signs of Devotion and Plain Grief) has created a character who, in his own words, is "like a force of nature when it comes to knowing what I want."