In 1964, Charlotte-Anne "Channe" Willis is four years old. She lives with her famous father, an American expatriate writer, and her socialite mother in an apartment overlooking the Seine River in Paris. Charles de Gaulle is president, America's involvement in Vietnam is not yet a global issue, and something has just happened that will change Channe's life forever.

Channe is used to having what little attention her preoccupied parents devote to child rearing all to herself. When her parents illegally adopt a little French boy, Benoit, who is her same age, Channe is jealous and treats him as an intruder. Having to share with him her parents' love and limited time--particularly her father's--she grows both fiercely resentful and protective of her new sibling.

As the years progress and the family moves to New York, Channe wavers between feelings of love and jealousy for her brother, while simultaneously exploring sexual and emotional relationships with other boys. But soon after they nestle in their new small town on Long Island, Channe is forced to cope with the rapidly declining health of the man she loves the most: her complex father. In the midst of this harrowing struggle and her mother's alcoholic depression, the truth about her brother's parentage is revealed. As Channe becomes obsessed with his mysterious past and begins to confront the ghosts of that long-ago sibling rivalry, she realizes that it is only through her brother that she'll find solace.

Told with all the compassion, verve and wit that one would expect from the author, this uncommon coming-of-age story explores the complex and volatile relationship between a brother and sister who learn to love and respect each other for what they were as children--and what they have become as adults.