A collection of linked stories that follows four generations of the Songs, a Korean American family, beginning in 1924 just prior to the Immigration Act and extending to near the end of the century. Through this story cycle, patterns emerge as cultural identity and individuality, often in tension with one another, shape choices and outcomes.

"This collection of linked stories follows four generations of the Songs, a Korean American family, beginning in 1924 just prior to the Immigration Act and extending to near the end of the century. The stories chart the shifting definitions of Americanness, desire and belonging articulated, in turns, by the mother, father, grand-daughter, great-grandson, and even a ghost child who died after a tragic accident. But they center on the experience of Gracie Song, following her from girlhood to young motherhood, through her children's teenage years and finally to her elderly solitude, when to her great astonishment she finds romance with a younger man and reconciliation with an estranged daughter, both unexpected gifts of late"--