A melancholy tale of tragedy and denial unfolds in this meticulously crafted novel about four generations of women and an unspeakable legacy of sexual abuse. As the only daughter of the family prepares to depart towards an adult life, a series of flashbacks between her and her mother reveals the traumatic secret of their lives and sheds insight into the violation and love that drove their development as individuals and as parts of their family. Their story is conjured up in the kitchen, where the delicious smells of home cooking serve as an exquisite allegory of the diaphanous barrier that the family has constructed between a fantasy world of nurture and love and the unthinkable world of abuse and pain.