Joshua Henkin's novel, "Morningside Heights," is about caretaking and ambivalence. It's about how life sometimes tells you that one of your closest relationships will be with a live-in nurse--although your own plans seem to want to follow a different course. The wonderful protagonist, Pru, marries a man who soon shows signs of early-onset Alzheimer's. Pru isn't ready for this. (How could anyone be ready?) She insists that Columbia retain her husband as a lecturer--although the husband now stands blank-faced at a podium while the TAs do all of the meaningful work. Pru wrestles with nurses who demand raises; a raise isn't possible, but a free ticket to Lincoln Center could "sweeten the bargain." Pru needs to believe her husband is "sexually viable," when he clearly isn't--so Pru begins administering a blow job and pretends not to hear the frustration in her puzzled husband's response. I haven't lived through Pru's experie...