It has been twenty years since Ava Langdon published her much-lauded novel The Apple Pickers. Now, she leads a reclusive life in the Blue Mountains, with two rats and her typewriter as her companions. She dresses in men’s clothes and carries a machete in her belt; she speaks French to the townspeople, paying no heed to their confusion. Above all else, however, she is still a fearless writer,inspired to seek beauty and perfection, and – despite her isolated existence – to imagine the inner lives of other people.