When Gus takes up with Cindy, he takes up with her whole family - her brothers and sisters and their husbands and wives and live-ins and one nighters, all of whom come and go from the logging show, the beer parlour, the "crowbar hotel" and God knows where else. Then there's the kids. Weasel and Ferret, Phoebe, Donny, and all the rest of them who, like their parents, have grown up abused and neglected and shunted from home to foster home and back again.

Cindy gives birth to a child who may be Gus's son, which means Gus's mother Isa may be his grandmother. Before Isa knows it, all the kids are calling her Grandma. She dishes out all the food and love and cash she can find. When that is not enough, she calls on the government and even a motorcycle gang for help. But maybe no one person can repair the whole fam damily all by herself.

This story is told in Cameron's signature style - direct, smart and very funny, with the undertone of anger that marks the most provocative fiction.