Hamilton, Jane

As Frankie Lombard grows up, she never stops loving her family's large apple orchard and the many relatives who share the farm with her. But as Frankie readies herself to run the orchard with her father, she notices uncomfortable change seeping into an otherwise constant family dynamic. Possibilities of urbanization, disinheritance, and her own coming adulthood threaten the future Frankie thought was guaranteed, and she wrestles with questions of identity, tradition, and leaving home.

When a neighbor's daughter drowns while under Alice Goodwin's care, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions.

Henry Shaw, a high school senior from an average upper-middle-class Chicago family, discovers that his mother, a pianist, is having an affair when he accidentally reads her E-mail.

When a neighbor's daughter drowns while under Alice Goodwin's care, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions.

Ruth, a farm girl from Honey Creek, Illinois, reviews the events of her life in an effort to make sense of the violence and tragedy that have plagued her and her family from the time she was a child.