Joyce Greenberg Lott reflects on her life that began seventeen months before the start of world War 11 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, just a few blocks from the boardwalk, beach and ocean. She does not believe that a memoir can be "true," and inserts her poetry throughout her story as a way to get closer to "her truth." During a time of rellgious and racial separateness, Joyce describes what it was like to grow up Jewish, marry at eighteen and have three children before Second Wave Feminism. She writes about her two marriages - the first ending in divorce and the second in death - her lovers, and her relationships with family and friends as she searches for a way to realize her own identity. In her story, Joyce evokes the natural world, particularly the Atlantic shore. Joyce ends her memoir thinking about dying, wishing she could have a chance to reflect on that the way she has been able to reflect on her life.