When Winston receives a telegraph from his mother informing him of his father's imminent death, he reluctantly returns to Jamaica after 25 years of teaching history in the United States, having avoided contact with his family. Never considering how his relatives regarded his silence, mutual resentments cause a series of painful encounters and memories of an abusive father, a betraying mother, a favored brother, a sister lost in an accident, and a younger half-sister. Told from the perspectives of both Winston and his estranged brother, Septimus, this powerful tale combines psychological realism and magical elements as they seek to heal their longstanding breach. Absorbing and poignant, themes of forgiveness, transcendence, and human possibility are explored as death reverberates through each relationship.