Clare Yates returns home, defeated but determined to start over after leaving her lover in San Francisco. She teaches English at a large state university in a very small town. One day, she opens up a book and finds something that tells her what she always thought was true--she has lived another life, in a different place and time. She decides to go looking for proof of that life, hoping for renewal and redemption. Then, "he" comes back to town, and it's as if nothing has changed. Only, everything has. A literary roman a clef ("story with a key") of sweeping personal and emotional intensity.