The book relates to Sackville-West's complicated marriage to writer and politician Harold Nicolson.

They are centred on herself and her passion for Violet Trefusis for whom she abandoned Harold Nicolson, Vita's bisexual husband and her two children, Nigel and Ben.

I met her only twice, and by then she had become a galleon, no longer the pinnace of her youth, and I did not recognize in her sails the high wind which had swept my mother away […].

Nicolson writes about his father and the love between him and Vita, that grew more and more important for them as their life progressed, and was the base to which each of them returned after Vita's strong passions for other people, including the famous Virginia Woolf and Harold's adventures with men.

Nicolson stresses the liberal nature of Vita's and Harold's views and actions about marriage and sexuality in the early years of the 20th century, but also brings forward Vita's intense snobbery and coldness about the lower social classes.