Five years after her young husband's death, Celia Cassill has moved from one Brooklyn neighborhood to another, but she has not moved on. The owner of a small apartment building, Celia believes that she has a right to her ghosts, and she has chosen her tenants for their ability to respect one another's privacy. But everything changes with the arrival of Hope, a dazzling woman of a certain age on the run from her husband's recent betrayal. When Hope begins a torrid and noisy affair, and another tenant mysteriously disappears, the carefully constructed walls of Celia's world are tested and the sanctity of her building is shattered. Ultimately, Celia and her tenants must abandon their separate spaces for a more intimate one, and the promise of genuine joy.

Amy Grace Loyd investigates interior spaces, of the body and the New York warrens in which her characters live, offering a startling emotional honesty about the traffic between men and women. The Affairs of Others is a story about the irrepressibility of life and desire, no matter its sorrows or obstacles.