Port Authority Bus Terminal, July Fourth weekend, 1968: the setting for an uneasy reunion between a mother and her two children. As the elder one, Joan, reveals in her sharp, ruthlessly honest teenage voice, they were abandoned by their mother two years before, when she walked out on their father, "and although my brother and I may have been hugging sorts before she left, we certainly weren't anymore." Now they're meant to visit for a couple of days and act as if everything is fine.

Their mother has a new life in New York City, and for one weekend a year over July Fourth, Joan and her brother are invited to participate in it.

The new life revolves around their mother's new family - Joan's aunt, uncle, and cousins, the Eberlanders. Hurt and jealous, but intrigued in spite of herself, Joan proceeds to dissect the life of this other family to figure out why her mother has chosen it over her own. Over four successive years, we watch Joan making a close, intermittent study of the Eberlanders, until they are laid completely bare before her - and us.

In her funny, smooth, understated style, Carey shows us how our families can hurt us more than anyone else can, and how we survive the hurt, or don't.