When Adrienne Brodeur was only fourteen, her mother, Malabar, woke her in the middle of the night to breathlessly confess that she'd kissed her husband's best friend. From that moment on, Adrienne—flattered by the attention from her self-absorbed mother—became Malabar's confidante and accomplice, at great cost to her own life and well-being. In this graceful, unflinching, and enthralling memoir, Adrienne explores the intense, nuanced, and explosive bonds between spouses, lovers, and— perhaps most complex of all—between mother and daughter.