Clare Menges is the twenty-nine-year-old suburban mother of three, but her comfortable world is disrupted when her best friend's lover appears in her life. Anyway Clare's perfect life was never what it seemed; the world of her family is a complicated and fraught web of marriages and divorces, half-siblings and stepchildren, broken homes and homes reassembled. As Clare's relationships begin to unravel, she notices her life repeating the patterns of those around her. Tessa Hadley constructs a beautifully fashioned and intimate portrait of family life in our times.