Hope Robinson grew up poor in Memphis. Through her mother's deter- mination, she graduated from a private boarding school and a prestigious university. But now, as a 28-year-old reporter for a Philadelphia newspaper, she finds her life spinning out of control. At work, her editors who insist that she write the white version of African-American life. In her personal life, she is torn between her black boyfriend and the white lover whom she tried to steal from a blonde. Finally, overwhelmed by stress, she commits a desperate actone that will lead her to an understanding that hatred is the most self-destructive of all emotions.