Morningside Heights By Joshua Henkin Knopf Doubleday; 304 pp.; $26.95 During the early days of the pandemic, I noticed many readers craving dramatic stories in exotic settings to take their minds off the crisis. Others, like myself, felt so disconnected from humanity and pre-COVID-19 life that we searched for relatable narratives of people navigating the old problems we tackled before the world was thrown into chaos. Joshua Henkin’s new novel, Morningside Heights, reconnected me to the everyday problems that I’ve missed over the past year. At first, it seems as though the book will focus on a heady romance between a young, besotted literature student and her older, hotshot Shakespeare professor. The central question, however, is not how young love is born, but how it ages. The novel glosses over the drama and angst involved in building a relationship...

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