In Arkansas, David Leavitt brings together three novellas that explore the themes of escape and exile. In "Saturn Street," a disaffected screenwriter in Los Angeles volunteers to deliver lunches to homebound AIDS patients only to find himself falling in love with one of them. In "The Wooden Anniversary," Nathan and Celia - characters familiar to readers of Leavitt's short story collections - reunite awkwardly at Celia's cooking school in Tuscany after a five-year separation.

And in "The Term Paper Artist," a writer named David Leavitt, hiding out at his father's house in the aftermath of a publishing scandal, experiences literary rejuvenation when he agrees to write term papers for UCLA undergraduates in exchange for sex.