Two spectacularly mismatched young people meet at a halfway house in a Seattle suburb in 1971. Paul Siebert is a reporter, a shy, depressive Vietnam veteran, already chastened by the blows life has dealt him. Maggie Ryan is a wild child, a rape victim, a musician, an armed robber, determined to live life to the fullest. They have no business falling in love, no plausible future together. But whatever initially connects them, though it often flickers, refuses to die. Over the next 35 years, as each separately tries to make a settled life, their attraction never stops being an inspiration, and...