Here's a plot synopsis: Young Ohioan with literary ambition moves to NYC, takes high-glam assignment writing for glossy celebrity mags and tabloids, publishes quirky and singular first novel to critical acclaim, gets engaged to another prominent writer.

That's Shari Goldhagen's story thus far.

The Cincinnati native's Family and Other Accidents, (Doubleday; $23.95), partially set in Cleveland, has made her an author to watch. The book covers a quarter-century narrative in an addictive 262 pages through "snapshots" of Shaker Heights brothers Jack and Connor Reed, who — despite a 10-year age gap and varying temperaments — strive to be present for each other after the early deaths of both their parents.

Emotionally-repressed Jack becomes a lawyer at Jones Day and beds a succession of Plain Dealer reporters before easing into a vague commitment of sex and resignation with red-haired Mona. Connor grows up with a role-model fixation on John F. Kennedy, attends Harvard and marries Laine, the classically beautiful campus fling he impregnates. Connor's life-threatening ailments and sense of living on borrowed time make him fatalistic and impulsive, and Goldhagen has you turning the pages for the latest shockers and domestic rearrangements in the extended Reed family every time a chapter leaps years forward.

Family and Other Accidents began in Shari Goldhagen's days at Northwestern University near Chicago, to which Jack eventually relocates (damn, even fictitious young professionals are fleeing there).

"When I was in college I wrote a short story about this youngish couple, Jack and Mona, on a Caribbean cruise having a miserable time. I stumbled across it a few years later in grad school [at Ohio State], and I couldn't get the people out of my head. That first story is still in there, although I think almost every word has been changed."

"All in all, it probably took about three years, but that's factoring in all the time spent stalking celebrities to pay for things like rent and little dresses."

Yes, the celebrities. The novel bears not even trace elements of Goldhagen's Manhattan routine, profiling the beautiful people while on the red-carpet beat for publications like Life & Style, New York and the National Enquirer.

"While I certainly had some interesting times tracking down Britney Spears, it was a job, and I always thought of it as such. A lot of artists have day jobs; mine just happened to involve waiting for starlets to come out of their hotels with inappropriate men."

Right now Shari Goldhagen is working on another novel, doing book reviews and dreaming of undertaking a "literary novel" about Batman. "So much sexier than Superman, by the way," she said.

"Sadly the thing dominating my life right now is booking a wedding band." Goldhagen is engaged to Will Leitch, a novelist in his own right and editor of the sports Web site, deadspin.com.

It is for that reason that she's coming back to Ohio.

"We're getting married in Cincinnati next May. And, apparently, a year in advance is not enough time to book entertainment. Anyone willing to drive across the state?"