The main protagonist of the story, Kerewin Holmes, is a painter who has lost her ability to create art after a falling out with her family. To escape painful memories and limit human interaction, she builds a small tower on the coast, away from other people. However, her desire for isolation and avoidance of pain become a prison of sorts, not allowing her to process her feelings and move forward.

Kerewin is both Maori and European, or pakeha. She identifies as fully Maori, but outwardly she looks white, and her appearance occasionally causes her to feel as an imposter among other Maori. Furthermore, both her personality and physical body transgress white social and gender expectations. To another white person, her appearance seems to be androgynous: Simon is unsure at first whether she is a woman or a man (48). She also describes herself as “heavy shouldered, heavy-hammed, heavy-haired” with “short brows,” “yellowed eyes, and eczema scarred skin” (21). She has “large hands and large feet, crooked only if you look closely” and is “encased in jeans, leather jerkin, silk shirt, denim jacket, knife at side, bare footed” (21). All these descriptions suggest that Kerewin does not fit Western standards of beauty and femininity.