The Arroways appear to be a normal enough family. Liz and Pete's marriage has held up through time and circumstance, and their children, although not always perfectly mannered, seem to be clever and robust. But upon closer inspection this is not the case at all. Liz, a housewife with a keen nose for environmental issues, happens to be flirting with madness. Jake, the eldest child, is flirting with a reckless reinterpretation of the past. And Pete, a ghost-writer who is striving to come to terms with his own masculinity, is flirting with a woman at work.