Fifteen-year-old Amrit disappears from her house in the middle of the night and returns a different person. Over the next two decades her actions affect three generations of her Sikh family in Singapore. When Narain her brother leaves his new life in America to take care of her he must find his place again in a country and a community that will not accept him for who he is. Gurdev the eldest raises his three daughters with fear and caution over what they might become. And Harbeer whose wife has left him is the unyielding patriarch who must reconcile his pride and learn to cope with his own demons.

Balli Kaur Jaswal's award-winning first novel is a tender yet powerful portrayal of mental illness. It is also a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family struggling to preserve tradition in the face of an ever-changing nation.