<p> No novelist alive knows the human heart better than Scott Spencer does. No one tells stories about human passion with greater urgency, insight, or sympathy. In "A Ship Made of Paper, " this artist of desire paints his most profound and compelling canvas yet. <p> Daniel Emerson lives with Kate Ellis and is like a father to her daughter, Ruby. But he cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, the African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend. During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris's house and they begin a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race- blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people. <p> "A Ship Made of Paper" captures all the drama, nuance, and helpless intensity of sexual and romantic yearning, and it bears witness to the age-old conflict between the order of the human community and the disorder of desire.