In the tradition of Anita Shreve and Sue Miller, a psychologically-charged novel about the power and failure of family.
When Ann Biddle starts working with her young granddaughter, Ellie, on a family history project for school, they bond over scrapbooks and digging through old trunks. But what starts out as innocent fun grows darker as secrets long buried begin to resurface through the haze of Ann's early Alzheimer's symptoms. They're secrets about a tragic death in Ann's past, about sickness and cruelty, wealth and betrayal, and a forgotten first love; the type of knowledge best kept from a child. But Ellie soon reveals that she has some secrets of her own. As the pair digs deeper, Ann's daughter-in-law grows worried about Ellie and suspicious of Ann's motives, leading to a cat-and-mouse game to protect both their own interests and control of Ellie. Written from the perspective of two sets of Ann's diary entries forty years apart, the two stories entwine to lead Ann to re-think the narrative of her life and her role as keeper of the family history.
