The shadow of desire

Ginger Moore is a thirty-eight-year-old divorced academic trudging through life in Manhattan with a sometime lover (a hot young comedian who often pillories her in his act), a stern Panel of Judges in her head, and an obsession with brainy and talented women from the past who, for one reason or another, failed to fulfill their promise - women who remind her of her mother and of herself.

On her annual Christmas pilgrimage to her childhood home in suburban Michigan, Ginger, her parents, and her older brother reenact the Moore family's Passion Play - only their Christmas traditions include choosing the scrawniest tree available and watching Psycho on Christmas Eve.

It is during this holiday visit - remarkable for a startling confession and a sudden tragedy - that Ginger is finally able to penetrate the murkiness of her family's troubles and find surcease from the malaise that has plagued her adult years.