The Overstory

by Richard Powers

There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making things.

The fact is, their obsessions interlock. Each has half of a secret message. What else can he do but try to fit the halves together? And if they spin out, wake from the dream with nothing, what has he sacrificed but solitary waiting? Nick sits in his ancestors’ empty bedroom after midnight, reading by the lantern’s low glow.

The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.