Juniper Tree Burning hates her name. It represents everything she despises about her life: her "hippie" mother, Faith, who lives by healing herbs and horoscopes; her father, Ray, a cursing, abusive guitar-playing storyteller; her sick little brother, Sunny, whom she alternately mothers and resents; and the poverty of her isolated New Mexico town. Juniper flees them all, to private school in New England, to turn herself into someone new: Jennie.

She raises herself to be strong and smart: a medical student who hustles a little pool on the side, an obsessive runner, and a self-proclaimed Ugly Chick With Attitude.

Then, one night the Seattle Police call. Her brother, Sunny, has leaped off a ferry and killed himself. And so begins the biggest journey of her life. As Jennie retraces the steps of her brother, the same path traveled by generations of her family, she confronts the stories they have woven, the tapestry of the lives they have built on the coasts and deserts of the West and comes to terms with her past, her present, and her future.