This debut novel chronicles the coming-of-age of Song Byrd, daughter of a prostitute who fails her as a mother. She also has a drug-addicted sister, and a petty criminal and rapist brother. However, she manages to transcend her background and gets herself to college--but then must cope with the dissociation she inevitably feels from the world she came from, which is reflected in the poor people she tries to help when she gets a job with a do-gooding foundation.