- In an astonishing debut novel, Ellen Sussman writes a heartbreaking tale filled with emotional intensity in the tradition of Anita Shreve's "Sea Glass (Little, Brown, 4/02), Elizabeth Berg's "Open House (Ballantine, 2001), and Sue Miller's "While I Was Gone (Ballantine, 1999).- With its spare, unsentimental prose, superbly realized characters, and vivid San Francisco setting, ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS is a timeless love story and a commercial novel with wide appeal.- Ellen Sussman has published many short stories in literary and commercial magazines, in addition to winning the short story contests of both "Redbook and "Paris Transcontinental, as well as a Writers at Work Fellowship. She has taught at Rutgers University, UCLA, and Johns Hopkins University.