At the center of Hill’s novel is Faye’s struggle for, with, and against motherhood as she searches for her identity. In the late 1960s in the American heartland, Faye is expected to marry, have children, and find reward in running a house. Hill examines the critical decades in America when that template of ideal motherhood was openly questioned, defied, and redefined.

From her earliest experiences, Faye is restless. A century ago in the literature of domestic realism, Faye would be an easy character to condemn because she refuses to follow conventional wisdom about the identity of women in matters of family, love, marriage, and motherhood. By those terms, she is selfish: She defies her father to pursue her education; she twists the affections of a boy who loves her; she unapologetically experiments with her sexuality; she explores unconventional avenues of spiritual awareness; she finds no reward in attending to meals and loads of laundry; she abandons her only child only to live less than a half-hour away from him as he grows up attempting to understand the trauma of that abandonment; and she takes controversial and public stands on hot button issues of politics and civil rights.