On Belmont Drive in Dennisonville, North Carolina, stands the Magnolia Arms, a stately house Jonas Grinstead constructed as a monument to love and abandoned when that love was thwarted. He becomes a math professor at Brighton Park Community College. An inveterate recluse, he lives a solitary life till Agnes Quinn, a new English professor, encounters him on her first day. Agnes also suffers from a broken dream. Her novel, Trevorode the Defender, remains...