Shelby, Vermont is a place torn between stasis and change, a contemporary New England town "where time was revealed not by geology, but by tumbling stone walls" and, increasingly, the division of family farms into "executive lots" where rich Flatlanders build expensive homes. Against this backdrop the 30-year saga of the Chartrain family is played out in a novel both searing in its portrayal of the realities behind the picture postcard views and incisive in its truths about the indomitability of the human spirit.