An American woman studying in Japan in the 1980s finds herself fascinated with an older Japanese woman. The Japanese woman shares an unpublished manuscript describing her childhood in Peru, her stay in an internment camp in Texas, and her adolescent life in an isolated Japanese village as WWII ended. Though not fully explained, the girl's relationship with an "uncle" seems central to her story. Deeply attracted to the girl of the manuscript and the woman she became, the American graduate student is able to learn the truth about the long-ago relationship of the girl with her "uncle" and other details of her childhood sexual experiences. In making these discoveries, the American woman herself becomes part of the story and its recurring themes.