Content Warning: This novel contains depictions of death by suicide, mental health conditions, and child abandonment. Characters in the novel engage in stereotypical depictions of nomadic or transient people and unhoused individuals.

The protagonist, Ruthie, and her younger sister, Lucille, grow up in a house originally built by Ruthie’s grandfather, Edmund Foster. Ruthie begins the narration, recounting the story of several generations of her family.

Edmund himself grew up in a house that was dug out of the earth. The windows were at ground level. After spending much time reading travel literature and drawing different locations, he decides to leave his dwelling and head west on a train toward the mountains. The location he chooses to build, Fingerbone, is prone to flooding, but their house gets less flooding than other people’s nearby because it is located on a hill. He procures a job with the railway, but one day when he is on a train named Fireball, it derails and lands at the bottom of the lake. Divers are not able to drag out any bodies. The only three remnants they are able to gather are perishable: “a suitcase, a seat cushion, and a lettuce” (6).