Summary

Prologue – Mary “Mimi” Margaret Miller, now an old woman, looks back to the 1960s when she was in her late teens and early twenties, and her mother, Miriam, and her father were faced with an uncertain future. Mimi recalls how the government had settled on Miller’s Valley – a quiet valley town – for a water management project, meaning that the people would be forcibly resettled elsewhere while the town and valley were covered up with water for the purposes of a reservoir. She recalls how some, like Elmer, knew they had no choice but to accept the future while trying to get as much money out of the government as possible before being forced out, while others fought the plans to flood the valley to the last moment. Strangely, Mimi recalls her mother not caring about the fate of Miller’s Valley while Mimi...