Whether they be country or city folk, at some point most people contemplate leaving their comfort zone for an unfamiliar locale. Some fantasize about running away or learning more about themselves. For Miranda, the reluctant heroine of Aoibheann Sweeney's detailed and dreamlike novel Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking, the journey becomes a tug-of-war between hectic Manhattan and a more isolated island in Maine — and between remembering and forgetting herself.

As a baby, Miranda and her parents move from New York City to a cabin in Maine, so her father can work on translations of classic literature, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses. Soon after their arrival, though, her mother dies, and Miranda is left in the care of her enigmatic father and Mr. Blackwell, a supportive and affectionate family friend. As her father drifts deeper into his studies, his absence forces Miranda to become resourceful and self-sufficient, giving her everyday life an inescapable connection with Ovid's mythological poems, which dramatize the perils of rejection and the acceptance of love. She develops a deep knowledge of nature, but builds up a distance from and innocence about people in general. Because she exhibits no direction or focus after graduating high school, her father sends her back to Manhattan to work at a classics library he and a close friend helped found.

A relatively short bus ride separates these worlds-away places. But once in Manhattan, Miranda begins to uncover the myths surrounding her father and his secrets. Gradually, she comes to see herself clearly through her first real romance and her relationships with her father's friends. In Among Other Things, Sweeney weaves a beautiful tale of a young woman's reconciliation between fantasy and the majesty of everyday life.

-Diana Metzger