Angela has spent the greater part of her life in suspension between the world of the small Midwestern farm she grew up on, and that of her present life in northern California as the wife of a marine biology professor, Jake, and mother of three. Although an accomplished weaver, she is unable to let any of her work go. The story opens as her Midwestern mother visits for the first time. Angela"s father has recently died, and Angela and her mother try to dispel the awkwardness by telling the snake stories the family has enjoyed over the years, stories that reflect fear of snakes and often result in the snake"s demise. However, something has changed for Angela and the stories are no longer funny. The novel is narrated by Angela to her father as she examines her relationship to him, to family, to the land and the reflection of that in the relationship to the serpent, and to herself. Then after an unexpected encounter with a French storyteller, she faces the fact that something is missing. ...