The cover for this book shows a woman's hands neatly folded, the neails perfect, the clothing tasteful, but there is no face. The book introduces us to Virginia "Gin" McPhee who only wants to "know." It takes places in 1970, just when women's liberation was getting started. It was a time when an employer could ask when you were planning to get pregnant.



After losing both her grandmother (who left her husband as a young woman and raised Gin's mother alone) and her mother, Gin is sent to live with that same grandfather, a strict Methodist preacher who beats her and constantly calls her a sinner while loving her in his own way. She rebels and falls for Mason, the high school jock. They conceive a child, and he immediately makes the decision to marry her which means losing his basketball scholarship. He takes a job with an oil company in Texas where their child is born prematurely and dies. Gin is also told she can no longer conceive.



They are still very young, but Mason is offered a job with ARAMCO, an oil company in Saudi Arabia. The money is great and includes free housing in a company compound. There's only one catch: there's absolutely no freedom for women and very few places where she can go and satisfy the increasing curiosity about her world. When they arrive in "Arabia" as they call it, they have a completely furnished home with a houseboy and gardener. Gin is bored quickly. She's not interested in drinking and gossip. In addition, Mason soon learns that shortcuts are being taken which causes needless accidents.



I sympathize and understand Gin having grown up at this time. Women were expected to take a back seat when it came to ambition. In fact, if you were curious and driven, you were looked upon with suspicion. To some extent, that's still true for women although it's a lot better than it was.



The language in this book is full of incredibly imagery, some of it romantic, some of it seamy. The end is jolting and incredibly sad, but, once again, the language is so wonderful, I can forgive anything.