This winner of the 1991 Whitbread Best Novel of the Year Award traces the descent of Eliza Peabody into madness. Eliza's emotional breakdown occurs during a period of unbearable loneliness, during which she writes to her neighbor Joan to berate her for leaving her husband and children to travel the world. As more letters are presented, one realizes that Eliza's version of events is not always accurate. Despite the intimacy of the letters, she barely knows Joan, and we learn that many letters are never sent: they are really the record of Eliza's breakdown.