Loretta Wendall and her two children experience violence and poverty in Detroit from the Depression in the 1930s to the riots of 1967.

"Amid a starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape in New Mexico, a married couple from Cambridge, MA takes residency at a distinguished academic institute. When the husband is stricken with a mysterious illness, misdiagnosed at first, their lives are uprooted and husband and wife each embarks upon a nightmare journey. At thirty-seven, Michaela faces the terrifying prospect of widowhood--and the loss of Gerard, whose identity has greatly shaped her own"--...