Romantic History

Of Michael Harris' debut, "The Chieu Hoi Saloon" (PM Press, 2010), a noirish look at the Los Angeles area during the 1992 riots, Publisher's Weekly said, "This impressive novel reaches deep into the souls of its characters."

Now, in "Romantic History," Harris turns his attention to the love affair of two spectacularly mismatched people. Paul Siebert is a reporter, a shy, depressive Vietnam veteran. Maggie Ryan is a wild child, a rape victim, a musician, an armed robber. In 1971, they meet at a halfway house in Seattle. Paul is writing a feature story; Maggie has just been released from jail. Somehow a spark flies between them, beginning a relationship that dies and revives over the next 35 years. To Paul, Maggie promises a sexual and emotional fulfillment he has found nowhere else, though whenever he gets close to her, she disappears. To Maggie, Paul is sometimes the agent of the radical freedom she demands from life, but just as often his love seems to threaten that freedom. In 2006, thanks to the Internet, Paul and Maggie happen to connect once again, with consequences neither can predict.

Harris, formerly a news editor and book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, has an M.A.T. from Harvard and a M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He and his family live in Long Beach, California.