Readers familiar with Conroy's previous works will recognize all of those social concerns important to the novelist in addition to a renewed focus upon war and its effects which may stretch over several generations. Suicide also occupies Conroy's attention as his narrator attempts to come to terms with that of his wife. The narrator's extended family also must face the death of its loved and hated matriarch, a new approach to coming to terms with the mother in Conroy novels.

Mental illness receives attention through the figure of the schizophrenic John Hardin and his brother, Tee, who works with the mentally ill and Dupree, who works with autistic children.

Insanity in general becomes central to the novel as not only mental incapacities, but also emotional ones, seem to consume many of the characters. The idea of healing across generations acts as both a theme and a...