A dying father's request for his daughter to "do something" with a trove of family letters leads the author, in the midst of a difficult divorce, back through the lives of five generations of women as they searched for connection and meaning, back to learn what sustained them through love and loss, and to discover the values that bound them together.

In intensely personal prose, Smith explores what influenced her maternal grandmother, Hannah Stevenson Trimble, widowed at age forty-one, to travel the world and become a woman who lived on the edge of protocol.

Interweaving Hannah's writing with the author's reflections on her life as she returns to her father's beloved Maine, Smith gives us insight into the fine balance between the need for individuality and independence, and the need for intimacy and a sense of belonging.