A heartrending literary memoir of the tragic death of Kohler's older sister describes how in the aftermath of a fatal car accident, the author investigated their unusual shared childhood and her brother-in-law's violent history. After learning that her sister Maxine was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg, Kohler flew back to the country where she was born, determined to reckon with the tragedy and her family's history of choosing unsuitable men. Flashing back to their childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father and being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. She shows how the bond between sisters changes but never breaks, even after death.