Liza Jarrett was born on the last stroke of midnight as the 20th century began Just as she never forgets this, neither does she forget her mother's humiliation in the big house where she 'did' Growing up during the First World War she marries Frank, a mystic and faith healer and unemployed steel worker She rears her children through the Depression to the Second World War and her real trial of strength It is also the story of Stephen, a young homosexual social worker