<P>A national bestseller voted by Time as the #1 novel of 1991 selected as one of the 'Best Books of 1991' by Publishers Weekly and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award--a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love science music and art by the brilliant author of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance. Stuart Ressler an up-and-coming molecular biologist finds his career sidetracked by the turmoil of the sixties and a young couple of the 1980s tries to discover why the biologist abandoned his scientific pursuits. The Gold Bug Variations is a double love story of two young couples separated by a distance of twenty-five years.</P>