When Saskia’s father dies suddenly, she’s forced to grow up fast in the gritty glamour of 1970's New York City. Her family moves from Gramercy Park to the seedy Upper West Side of Manhattan, where her mother becomes increasingly nihilistic and embarks on a sexual walkabout. Saskia’s older siblings run away to join the Sullivanians, a predatory psychosexual cult, leaving her to take care of her mom. Ex-communicated by her siblings, high School becomes all about getting high at school as Saskia struggles to cope with her grief, hapless crushes, and the desire to be loved.

This raw and gripping coming-of-age novel is a love letter to a Manhattan of an edgier era and to Saskia’s former self as she reconciles her father’s death, her mother's downward spiral, family estrangement, and the search for love in the face of heartbreak and loss.