At the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1957, Kai Ying struggles to hold her family together after her husband is sent to a labor camp as punishment for writing a letter criticizing the Communist Party. When her young son breaks his leg, she must come to terms with the shattering reminder of her husband's absence. Meanwhile, other members of the household must face their own guilty secrets and strive to find peace in a world where the old sense of order is failing.

In WOMEN OF THE SILK, Gail Tsukiyama takes her readers back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn to dusk.