S. lives with her grandparents in New York, where she has been abandoned by her mother. Their closet is a safe place to hide, to think, to ruminate. Her grandfather is in love with Thelonious Monk. Her grandmother is a librarian and a poet in love with Emily Dickinson. S.’s mother is a famous photographer, who is obsessed with Diane Arbus. S. longs for her mother. But she has the love of her Russian-Jewish refugee grandparents and ends up accepting the lesbian love of her best friend, Sophie.