I find the genre historical novel, even the word novel misleading.This reads like a long prose poem.Michaels reflects on intimacy,romantic love,trauma & loss.The characters are often connected (parent-child-grandchild).Their stories are not told in chronological order.The writing is at times outstanding & at times I rolled my eyes at the lyrical language. I didn‘t enjoy the audio, the somber monotonous narration was annoying & switched to print.