When Same Bax, that charming daredevil of a Boston lawyer, sails his boat out into a storm off the coast of Main, Elizabeth “Olly” Bax is left a widow at the age of twenty-seven. Same was her risk, the biggest emotional risk she had even taken; to Olly’s contemplative soul Sam was the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby all in one, and she was his ardent sidekick, his loving appreciator.

In the course of Olly’s slow recovery from grief, she realizes she must take chances as daring as any of Sam’s. Sam’s risks were only in the world: broken bones, an uninsurable motorcycle. But Olly’s penchant for the creaky limb and the hairpin turn translate into something very different: risks of an inner world, heroics fo the emotions. As Olly strives for balance, she is buffeted by odd and diverse forces: suave and presumptuous family friends, a war correspondent who fills her with plain old lust, and the approach /avoidance of her brother-in-law, Patrick Bax, a silent, deep, and willful puzzle. After a series of pratfalls, misgivings, gothic lows and comic highs, Olly realizes the most profound and difficult attachment of her life.