CHILDHOOD SUMMERS ON THE ST. CROIX RIVER IN MINNESOTA. Alan Emmet is looked after by a flinty trio of strong-minded women, almost as if she had three mothers. Her imagination is fired by their tales of pioneering ancestors, including the great-grandmother who hid her children in the asparagus patch when Indians invaded their lonely prairie dwelling. Emmet's favorite aunt scoffs at convention, reads poetry to her, and makes all the cousins lie naked in the sun each day. Another aunt introduces her to jazz and fancy cars. Daredevil Uncle Archie lives to fish and travels the world but can't hold a job. Always listening, Emmet hears her mother and aunts talk about their childhood friend, Scott Fitzgerald, and the expatriate maiden aunt who's left them her jewels. She hears an aging sophisticate describe watching Lindbergh land in Paris. She returns often with her husband and children to the unchanged but always moving river, a place that enfolds them all."