Their meeting was a near-fatal accident, but from the moment that Oliver Vandal, driving cab in Winnipeg, almost ran Sara Vogt down, the lives of these unlikely lovers have been rudely, sometimes bruisingly, sometimes gloriously, intertwined. Sara, a Mennonite immigrant stifled by a bloody family history and the secrets and propriety of her people, took one look at the darkly handsome Oliver and made a flying leap into his arms. Nobody's idea of a family man, Oliver has had to eke out a wage as the manager of the down-at-the-heels local hotel, bootlegging on the side to make ends meet. He is troubled by his own ghosts and longings, one moment nostalgic for his Métis heritage and the next daydreaming of finally proving himself to his childhood sweetheart, Alice Bouchard, who lives a tantalizing ferry ride away in the French town across the river. The novel unfolds over the course of a single day in June 1953, when the whole shaky structure of the Vandal family just might come crashing to an end.