Morality Tale is a novel about the triangular complications of a modern marriage and the comedy that flows from them. When the elusive but exciting Richard (an envelope salesman with a nice layperson's line in Zen philosophies) meets this novel's narrator, he offers her a friendly escape from her own daunting domestic life.

Burdened by her husband's ongoing negotiations with his angry ex-wife, the strains of looking after two stepchildren, and the lingering ghost of her own past betrayals, she finds that the life of a "second marryer" leaves much to be desired.

As her...