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 era repleto de vida na infância deles os saudou "com um horrível sorriso de caveira, com buracos onde havia dentes, e uma mão flácida se erguendo  de um leito hospitalar". Enquanto Roy sonda as profundezas da experiência humana, nunca perde de vista a maneira que seus personagens são moldados pelo tempo e pelo local que vivem.