Keller draws on the distinct voices of Beccah, an obituary writer, and her mother, Akiko, a spirit medium, to illustrate the the unconquerable love between mother and daughter. Beccah is lost on the path of life, unsure where her future lies, while her mother is lost in the past, her life caught up in the spirits of the dead, who have haunted her since her escape from the camps where she was a sex slave during the Japanese occupation of Korea in World War II.