The Court of Common Pleas

A wise and moving novel, The Court of Common Pleas offers insight into the complexities of modern relationships. A husband and wife, after twenty years of marriage, seek opposing futures: Judge Anthony Clifford, at retirement, wants to travel the world with his wife, Audrey; Audrey, verging on age fifty, has been accepted to medical school and plans to embark on a career as a doctor. When their disparate desires are revealed, a rift that neither of them anticipated suddenly threatens their relationship. With an encompassing kindness, Alexandra Marshall charts the tenderness, frustration, bewilderment, and ultimately the joy of a marriage willed to endure.