Following the pattern of nostalgic recall this is centered around the powerful, perhaps difficult personality of a Scots Irish grandmother who didn't wait for fate to catch up with her. An immigrant from Ireland, she married quickly in spite of recognizing her husband as a philanderer and just as quickly kicked him out;she ran boarding houses for forty years from St. Louis to San Francisco, Chicago to Cleveland; she let her three daughters earn their way on the stage; she followed another husband to Alaska; she loved horses and gambling; she turned her hand to an employment agency and real estate; she had a way with her during prohibition. The author's mother came out of a Ziegfeld show to marry money but Grandma would not be cajoled or committed to proper behavior and often rescued, in her own way, the grandson whose life was on the sumptuous side. There's a fond magicking of a well-loved character whose indulgence and individuality highlighted a boy's life that puts this on a par with other family eccentrics.