Fiction short story filled w/loneliness, rejection, defeat & triumph. 8 women all with deep seated issues who would like to go their own way and sever all contact with those around them but held together by needs too profound to ignore. Every kind of agenda you can think of; princess complex, sexual promiscuity, drug addiction, family "southern" shame, sickness, depression and the state of "old maid" which was serious in the 1940"s and 1950"s. Great read.