One day in 1955, the "father of New Zealand fiction" finds a young woman on his doorstep. A writer herself, she has recently emerged from a lengthy stay in the hospital for mental health problems and is seeking a safe place to live and write. The woman is Janet Frame, and the man who willingly takes her in is Frank Sargeson. Imaginative and intriguing, this novel explores two famous New Zealand personalities through a fictionalized account of the time they spent living together.