This brilliant, genre-defying novel, like its main character, cannot be aptly described. Gertrude Unmanageable, one hundred and three years old (or thereabouts), arrives at Serenity, a geriatric facility in a town called Promise. From there, the novel wonders about love and reproduction as two distinct forms of life intersect, and Gertrude finds poignant pleasure in the unmanageable she insists she carry.