Michael Dorris' contemporary classic novel is a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting at the present day and moving back in time, the novel is told in the voices of three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona, searching for a way to find herself; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother, whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past—and their future.