A poignant and compelling novel in ten stories, by the acclaimed author of the prizewinning novel DEAFENING. The Second World War is over when Jock moves his family to Quebec, where he lives with his wife, Maura, and their three children in a small bungalow, complains about the government, and tries to teach his children about life and poetry. But beneath the unrippled domestic surface bubble the anxieties and hopes of the women in the family.