Frederick Buechner's autobiography is about the destructive power of a childhood secret and how the telling of that secret has brought him healing, hope and a graceful experience of love. The secret of his father's suicide left an indelible mark, not only on Buechner's own life as a child and adult, but also on the lives of his mother, and much later, his daughter. He tells the story of his mother in her later years, a charming and beautiful woman who withdrew from the world as she aged. Buechner also writes of his daughter's anorexia and recovery, and of his own experience as part of a recovering group of adults who were children of alcoholics.