The river that was bursting with life  in their childhood greets them “with a ghastly skull’s smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised  from a hospital bed.” As Roy probes the depths of human  experience, she never loses sight of the way her  characters are shaped by the time and the place where they live.
O rio que transbordava de vida, na sua infância, cumprimenta-os "com um sorriso sinistro de caveira com buracos em vez de dentes. "e uma mão flácida erguida numa cama de hospital". Quando Roy sonda as profundezas da experiência humana, nunca perde de vista a forma como modela as suas personagens na época e no local onde elas vivem.