The novel is about the coming of age of a young Haitian immigrant, Sophie Caco, who leaves Haiti to join her mother in the United States. The novel moves between two settings, New York and Haiti. Through Sophie and her female generational line (her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother) the novel articulates the struggle of Haitian and Haitian American women with rigid patriarchal values, and forms of sexual abuse that have been internalized by the women themselves.