Recovering in the hospital after a mysterious accident, retired San Francisco teacher Anna Giardino retraces the events of her life. As she recovers tender but painful memories of her working-class Italian American childhood, her years teaching and eventual disillusionment, she arrives at a new affirmation of her work and life. May Sarton calls the novel a "divining rod into the springs of education....We find ourselves confronted with the grandeur and despair of what it is to be a teacher."