[4] The novel begins with an introduction to the manor of L'Enfant where Cesaria lives along with three of her children, Marietta, Zabrina and Luman.
The story initially begins with the baptism of Galilee and how a witness named Zelim became a prophet and eventually a spirit bound to Cesaria.
In the present day, Maddox tells the story of how Rachel Pallenberg met Mitchell Geary and married him.
Things are initially happy for Rachel, and she befriends much of the fellow women in the Geary family including Margie, wife to Mitchell's older brother Garrison.
Things appear to be improving when Rachel becomes pregnant, but she suffers from a miscarriage and is told she can't have any more children.
Rachel heads there and encounters a man named Niolopua, and sees Galilee arrive on his boat, the Samarkand.
The spirits of various Geary women appear however and he falls down the stairs, accidentally being stabbed by his knife and dies.
Nickleberry steals the identity of a dead soldier named Geary and with Galilee doing nefarious deeds for him becomes rich and powerful.
Douglas E. Winter of F&SF wrote Barker's "everexpansive aesthetic and stylistic pursuits find an ideal structure, producing his most controlled and widely appealing novel.
"[5] Publishers Weekly wrote that it features a "new richness of character, of its warpings and transfigurations by hatred and love, blood legacy and death.