An evocative account of the lives of four generations of Cuban women: Naty Revuelta, born in 1925, a socialite during the Batista era, who became intoxicated with Castro and his revolution; Naty's mother, an unregenerate reactionary, and Naty's two daughters, one of whom is the illegitimate and unacknowledged child of Castro. Each of the women's lives is shaped by a part of the island's terrible and poignant contemporary history, and together they weave a tapestry - at once intimate and revelatory - of Cuba in the 20th century.