After her parents' divorce, five-year-old Maisie becomes an object of financial settlement, a vessel of bitterness for both, a "package" sent from one to the other depending on how the circumstances suit them.

The tenderness that her parents do not offer her, the little girl finds when both remarry: the stepmother and stepfather care for the girl, yet they also use her as a link between them.

The world of adults seen through the eyes of a little girl who matures amidst intense passions, failed relationships, and the dead ends of those around her. With his penetrating pen, H. James analyzes complex psychological states and gifts us an impressively modern work, a "terrible adventure of growing up," as Borges puts it.