"This is the story of Innis Corbett, a young man born into a Highlander community in Cape Breton, whose inhabitants are held by ties of memory and blood. As a small child Innis leaves with his mother and father to live in Boston. After his father is killed in a car accident, Innis is raised by his mother, a woman with a weakness for men and drink.

When Innis gets into trouble over a series of car thefts (fancy cars are his soft spot, along with smoking pot), he is deported to Canada, a solution worse to him than going to prison.".

"It's the late 1970s, Innis has been living with his bachelor uncle in rural Nova Scotia, a place that has shaped his family and continues to absorb and challenge him. He takes refuge in the wild, dense woods, where he devises a plan to grow marijuana. This venture assuages his loneliness and gives him something to care for, a secret of his own. Then Claire, an attractive former flight attendant nearing 40, enters the household.

So begins an entanglement that leads to suspicion, jealousy, and ultimately to violence."--BOOK JACKET.