Ready, Set, Oh

Diane Josefowicz's first novel unfolds amid the upheavals of the 1960s and follows three people whose lives are bound by the expectations of their families and the pressures of their era: a young man who has lost his draft deferment, a pregnant young woman whose mental health is fragile, and an up-and-coming astronomer who chases reports of UFOs.

In Providence, Rhode Island, in 1967, Tino Battuta comes home from medical school in disgrace, no longer protected by his draft deferment, to attend his grandfather's funeral and to be with Primrose Tirocchi, the woman he loves. Primrose is an art student whose home life is marked by abuse and who contends with serious mental health difficulties. She spends her time co-writing a manuscript called The Book of Love with her closest friend and imagines a future in New York, where her paintings might hang in galleries. Tino, for his part, longs to get away from the war.

Primrose soon discovers she is expecting Tino's child. He has not offered the engagement ring she wants, and she is unsure herself whether their relationship can last. She then grows drawn to Lupo Light, a rising astronomer who also holds a deferment and has been swept up in a movement that ties political liberation to a surge in UFO sightings. Meanwhile, Tino and his best friend labor on a boat they hope will carry them to Canada, while Primrose joins the Students for a Democratic Society and tries to keep her fragile mental health steady.

As the story unfolds, Primrose and Tino come to see how narrow their options are and how far their capacity to endure can stretch. The novel asks how much real freedom of choice any of us has over the directions our lives take.