In an ingenious twist on the deathbed confession formula, Brown's principal protagonist Mary Frazier pens letters to her closest friends and family in an effort at closure and honesty at what she believes to be the end of her life. The letters not only contain the confession that Frazier is a lesbian, but are filled alternately with sympathy, love, rancor, hardhitting honest character assessments, and hard-to-take advice. This is a technique which instantly piques the reader's curiosity and plays on the ail-too human desire to read other people's mail. When Frazier learns that she has been misdiagnosed, and that she is not in danger of dying, she finds that the letters have already been mailed and that there is nothing to be done but confront the people and issues concerned. The narrative of the book alternates effectively between the reading of the letters by her friends and family...