Recounting experiences from travels back to her grandmother's birthplace, this classic of Australian literature documents what started out as a tentative search for information about the author's family—and turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. Unearthing political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture, this moving account of a search for truth—into which a whole family is gradually drawn—results in the freeing of tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, finally allowing them to tell their own stories.