As the story opens in 2001, journalist Elizabeth Allen drags herself up off the floor after her husband, a disgraced rock star, has brutally beaten her in their Upper West Side apartment before leaving. Across the city, Fancy Maguire showers after being raped by her fireman spouse. The 9/11 attack brings these women together after Fancy’s husband dies as a first responder at the Twin Towers and Elizabeth decides to rehabilitate her own fading career by writing about the experience of survivors. Although the two women’s circumstances are different in many ways, they find common ground in their shared despair at the hands of supposedly “good” men: “Was Frank a good man?” muses Elizabeth. “For all public accounts of his life, he was. Only Fancy and I knew the truth.” Both women struggle with their knowledge of their husbands’ violent natures. At the same time, Elizabeth and Fancy both mourn the men they once loved and think carefully about how they want the unsuspecting world to think of their spouses. Slevin structures the story around Elizabeth’s first-person narration, interspersing transcripts of her interviews with Fancy and members of her extended family and friends. Although Fancy’s experience of domestic abuse ends with her husband’s death, Slevin effectively maintains the narrative momentum with the ongoing story of Elizabeth’s traumatic marriage, which continues for a year after the attacks. Her arc notably mirrors the city’s own journey from despair to hope as she suffers a final, brutal attack, recovers, and experiences a new life as part of a larger community, including Fancy and her family.