In the spring of 1994 in Cooperstown, New York, Joanie Cole unexpectedly died in her sleep. For the first time, three generations of the Obermeyer family are living together under one roof. At the heart of the Obermeyer’s present-day tremors is the scandal of The Sex Cure, a thinly veiled roman à clef from the 1960s, which shook the small village of Cooperstown to the core. Anne discovers a battered copy underneath her parents’ old mattress and the Obermeyers cannot escape the family secrets that come rushing to the surface.