Here we meet nuclear scientist Defoe Desmond, a post Cold War
irrelevancy, who is ineptly drawn to a youthful, wily, husband-stealing
New Age journalist; three sisters named Edwina, Thomasina, and Davida,
who are appalled when their increasingly wild mother finally gives their
father a male heir - two years after his death; and Paula, who keeps so
still waiting to hear evidence of her husband's adultery that she does
not notice she's giving birth. Weldon's world is peopled with therapists
who blithely destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers
whose greatest cruelty is their detachment, and clever women navigating
the perils and pitfalls of domesticity.