A groundbreaking debut novel from one of the most interesting authors of the generation. This is the story of a simultaneously symbiotic and destructive relationship between a mother and a daughter, and of a desire to belong somewhere while also wanting to break free.

Bechi is in her thirties, and lives in Helsinki, where she is trying to finish her master’s thesis. Her mother Shoshana is a writer of Yemeni Jewish heritage. Her autobiographical novel shocked readers in Finland when it came out in the mid-90s, and she has also burned all the bridges between her family in Israel.

What’s more, the fate of Shoshana’s brother is forever burned in to the minds of the family’s three generations of women: Bechi, Shoshana, and her mother, Rivka.

When Bechi meets her mother for morning coffee at a Helsinki café and tells her about her pregnancy, many years of tension come to a head. How can two people remember everything so differently? More importantly, what are the things that they would rather forget?