This is a story that is tragic at the start with the description of a train wreck that slides like an eel into a darkened river. There were many bodies and lost souls of which there were no survivors. The divers from the Police search and rescue tried to find some of the passengers but no one lived as there are various descriptions in the book of each one couple or family. The story transports the reader to the first person narrator one of two sisters who lived in a railway home of her grandfather who died sometime earlier. It seems that the story is about death and rebirth and the details that go with a spiritual energy. We see that the sisters grow up and go through many changes and become transient through their life especially one named Lucille who could be found sleeping on a bench with newspapers covering her. They would camp out and catch fish by a fire shunning conventional society values and  would have to be brought back to attend school. They would revert back and see that the bowels become coextensive with bones living a life that’s far removed and individual. The river and the dark memory of the tragic train wreck was a moment that was burned into their memory.