Four generations of us had occupied this space, argued in it and inexplicably blighted each other's days in it, all while looking out at the ocean, crashing and advancing every year."Three months pregnant after a two-night stand, Jane Haus resigns her job teaching English to confront her ambivalence about having a baby. Drawn by an irresistible inner homing device, she returns to her childhood home on the New Jersey shore-to a gruff and eccentric father who spends his days in a room full of clocks; to her brilliant sister Bee, as efficiently organized as the summer is formless; to the blissfully hot privacy of an attic full of memories; to water. And in this chaotic season of growth Jane will try to piece together the puzzle of her family's history-searching for an understanding of the mother she never really knew...and reaching out for the solace only family can offer