The novel is set in an eleventh-century castle in Umbria where twenty artists are gathered for six weeks of work and companionship, where they spend their time telling each other stories. The protagonist, a prose poet and advice columnist, reports on the other artists and tells a number of her own stories.

Jean McGarry is formerly Elliott Coleman Professor of Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Her other IRP publication is Herself and Others: A Memoir

(An HAB book)