Notes

254 pages Contents: The sign -- Windmills -- Cracked -- The hit-thumb theory -- Mississippi Mary -- Sister -- Dottie's bed & breakfast -- Snow-blind -- Gift Summary: This book explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother's happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence. The book reverberates with the deep bonds of family and the hope that comes with reconciliation