The book's heavily surreal and frequently disrupted narrative tells the story of Janey Smith, a ten-year-old American girl living in Mérida, Mexico with her father, with whom she has an incestuous sexual relationship.

Her father begins to spend all his time with another woman, Sally, leading Janey to realize that he hates her because he sees her as an obstacle to freedom.

There she meets Jean Genet, the iconic French writer, with whom she vulgarly and intensely discusses her previous sexual relationship with US President Jimmy Carter.

Acker wrote the book sporadically over a period of five years while living in Solana Beach, California with composer Peter Gordon.

The "dream maps" included in the book were taken from unpublished work on her first serial novel, The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula.

During initial publication, both imprints accidentally reversed the intended order of the final two sections; this was corrected in Grove's 2017 anniversary edition.

[2] The book is written as a collage novel, variously incorporating letters, poems, drama scenes, dream visions and drawings.

[4] In a review written shortly after its publication, Roy Hoffman criticized the book for uncritically depicting the abuse of women.