Summary

A year before Izzy Richardson burned down her family’s house, Mia and Pearl Warren had moved into their duplex down on Winslow Road, a "little rental house" at the southend of Shaker Heights (8). Although Mr. and Mrs. Richardson joked about Mia’s artistic profession and her possible inability to pay the rent, neither actually cared about the money. Mrs. Richardson was a journalist and her husband, a successful lawyer, so Mrs. Richardson only sought tenants who were in need of their "charity" (12). A single mother and her teenage-daughter were just the right fit to fill the vacancy above Mr. Yang, a Chinese immigrant and local bus driver.

Mia and Pearl soon discovered that they had much to learn about what they could and could not do in their new affluent neighborhood. Things in Shaker Heights were not exactly how they appeared. Their...