It's April 1957. Memory will graduate from high school at the end of May. At this bend in the road, she's between her lost-farm childhood, her life here in Darlington, and a future of journeys. She finds herself going back over the past 7 years, since 1950. True to her name, she remembers everything: -- teenage stuff: boys, the school newspaper, a wreck, beaches, peanut boilings - creation of the first international stock car raceway by a local genius - love, death and loss, family and belief - music and music and more music - Hurricane Hazel smashing the Carolina coast - the Shutdown that could spin her town into permanent decline. What continually darts around the edge of these pages is the murder she can neither leave behind nor begin to comprehend.