A new addition to the thought-provoking collection of Spinifex feminist classics, this award-winning novel by New Zealand novelist Beryl Fletcher explores the themes and contradictions of contemporary women's lives in a vivid and memorable setting. How do you decide how to live? Or do others make that decision for you? In this lyrical novel, Beryl Fletcher explores the paradoxes of modern life. As a new academic, Julia finds her beliefs challenged by her students, reinforced by her friends mistreatment and dismissed by her family. Just as her mother sought freedom from her family's rural poverty, Julia and her sister, Isobel, search for their own solace, finding it in different and disparate places.