Fifty-something Feride has only just arrived at the painful realization that her sexual choice may not have been the right one. In looking back on the failure of her marriage and her close and tender relationship with her stepdaughter, surrounded all the while by the social unrest in Turkey of the past quarter-century, Feride's inner journey touches upon the passage of all lives as both filtered by the past and flowing into future lives. The sweeping yet intimate scope of the novel brings up repression in different eras and the familial and sociopolitical histories that influence individuals and their choices.