The collapse of her brief marriage has stalled Bea Nightingales life leaving her middle-aged & alone teaching in an impoverished borough of 1950s New York. A plea from her estranged brother gives Bea the excuse to escape by leaving for Paris to retrieve a nephew she barely knows; but the siren call of Europe threatens to deafen Bea to the dangers of entangling herself in the lives of her brothers family. By one of Americas great living writers Foreign Bodies is a truly virtuosic novel. The story of Beas travails on the continent is a fierce & heartbreaking insight into the curious nature of love: how it can be commanded & abused; earned & cherished; or even lost altogether.