The novel was first published in hardback on December 29, 1998 through Random House and is set in the fictional town of Shirley Falls, a location that Strout would revisit in her 2013 novel The Burgess Boys.

However the incident causes Isabelle to reflect back on the circumstances of Amy's birth as she was groomed into a sexual relationship as a teenager by the married friend of her deceased father.

Isabelle has conflicting feelings about the relationship as it was the last time she was sexually intimate with a man, but also the ensuing pregnancy derailed her plans to become a teacher.

The same night Amy and her friend's ex-boyfriend accidentally discover the body of a young girl who had gone missing months earlier.

The two incidents cause Isabelle to confide in her friends about the circumstances of Amy's birth and her guilt over having had an affair with an older married man.

[1] Filming took place in South Carolina and Elisabeth Shue and Hanna Hall were brought on to portray Isabelle and Amy Goodrow.

By focusing on the ''confluence of different longings'' that bedevils her characters into harming and helping one another, Strout makes the drab little world of Shirley Falls seem richly important.