'Lally Black is a psychiatrist who struggles to keep the lid on her doubts about her own funds of compassion. Yu Siying is a Chinese woman who has caught HIV in Australia. Afraid of China's judgement, Siying has one last chance to claim asylum, and believes Lally is the key to her appeal. Lally finds herself enticed into an imagined China, unfolding in the gulf between herself and Siying, causing her to acknowledge the threads that run between complacency and brutality'. (Publisher's blurb)