A little boy stolen from his family, a plainswoman who marries the homeliest man she ever saw, a Canadian homesteader who takes in his hired man and his whole, growing family, and a husband in a hotel with a turtle in the bathtub, drunk and desperate to save a marriage--either one of them--this is a family like a prairie, woven of many strands. Threshold consists of twenty stories with an introduction, a reader's guide, and a dramatis personae that lists the "characters" and their relationships. They make sense when you get to them.