In the 1980s in the Melbourne suburb of Fawkner, Josie's father is drinking himself to an ugly and appalling death. Josie's mother is a factory machinist, bringing home piecework to keep the family afloat. And Josie is surviving, or not—self-destructive sex, excessive alcohol, drugs, brutalised friendships. But her internal monologue—intense, immediate and raw—reveals a heartbreaking portrait of an intelligent young woman desperately looking for a way to make sense of her life, grappling with her feelings of repulsion and love for her father and her longing to be loved.