Pearl Tull, now in her eighties and blind, listens as her favourite son, Ezra, reads from her diaries kept over the last thirty five years As the reminiscences unfold one is aware of the changing relationships between the feuding members of the family The eldest son Cody who is lured by power and money, her paediatrician daughter Jenny, and the fatalistic Ezra who is the envy of Cody and the butt of his cruel practical jokes