Newly married Juan Ranz digs into his family's troubled past beginning with the suicide of his father's first wife, Juan's aunt, and finds parallels in his relationships marked by miscommunication and the need for human contact.In a novel that chronicles family secrets, Juan knows little about his father Ranz, but each seems to have always been comfortable with their friendly but distant orbit. When Juan marries, his new wife bonds with Ranz, and Juan considers the past anew, yet he really doesn't want to know about it.