The first novella describes the family house in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria, and the three generations who live, often in some discord, in its rooms; the second details the marriage of a cousin, and the threatened appearance of an estranged branch of the family at the ceremony; the third rounds off the cycle with the death of the family matriarch, the boy?s grandmother. Together they offer an intimate insight into a community negotiating the conflict between tradition and modernity, and the complex tribal affiliations of the extended family.
