Lauder Jones and Mountcastle, two Halifax families both alike in dignity, linked by love and circumstance. Douglas Lauder Jones, obscure story writer, calls it "Life and No Escape." His lovelorn son John thinks it's the end of happiness. Neuroscientist Ursula Lauder Jones sees it as sink-or-swim parenting. Whatever it is, her daughter Merin, new owner of a movie house on Barrington Street, wants to sit through it twice. Her sister Anya, summer student working at Mountcastle Framing on Spring Garden Road, relishes life's richly varied fabric.

And the youngest, Cary, budding writer, recognizes it as apt material for the many stories stitching this novel's intriguing brocade.