With its aspiring graduates, wise-cracking lovers, and crusading physicians, Andrew Levitas's debut novel is a thought-provoking page-turner, a cross between a screwball comedy and a Bildungsroman. Levitas captures the excitement of a memorable seminar discussion with the same panache with which he paces a thrilling car chase. A book about learning to live well, to love wisely, and to do some good in this world against the odds, its subtitle could have been A Sentimental Education.