Lerner's fourth novel, Snapshot, is a departure from his previous works and announces his intention to delve deeper into the human psyche. The unnamed narrator of the story is living in the San Francisco Bay area when he meets and falls in love with the strange and passionless Luce. Certain that he cannot live without her, the narrator orchestrates a series of tests to find out if she is capable of loving him. San Francisco, Carmel, and even Lake Tahoe crop up in this bizarre tale, and it only when everything seems lost that he finds the very thing he has been seeking. Love and insanity are two sides of the same coin in this constantly swirling tale of emotional relationships.