The story circles around a well-to-do Trinidadian family, in particular, Valmiki, a renowned doctor and loving if confused father, and his youngest daughter, Viveka, lively, intelligent, and intent on escaping the gilded cage that protects but also smothers her. Father and daughter conceal painful secrets about their sexual identities, and it is Viveka's struggle to discover the truth about herself that threatens to unmask her father and shake the foundations of her family and her delicately calibrated society. Mootoo writes with an unusual combination of clear-eyed affection and expansive humanity about society and its hierarchies, peeling back layers of prejudice and exposing the complex interaction of race, gender, class, and sexuality.
