A professor who also writes novels returns home to care for his mother, a victim of Alzheimer`s, after his sister is shot to death at the abortion clinic where she works. When his own new novel is rejected, and a patently phony novel about ghetto life by a middle-class woman is a huge success, he decides to write a parody of the book--to soothe his own indignation, if nothing else. Surprisingly, it becomes a best-seller. However, he is also in the midst not only of coping with his mother`s illness but of finding out things about his family`s history that loom as large in his life as his literary success, and force him to make choices that affect all concerned.