In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital’s entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives.

The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.

與其辯論色情的好壞優劣，不如對性與身體採取自在的態度，
尋找媒介再現以外的愉悅來源：
狗的氣味與體溫、運動後流汗的感覺，
穿著內褲替小孩洗澡的男人、陽明山露天溫泉裡那一群豐腴、快活、聒噪不休的歐巴桑……，
這些不同樣態的身體在社會關係的環繞下展現牠們／她們／他們的自主與自在，
這些都是媒介再現以外的真實世界，等待我們慢慢去發掘與欣賞。