Hetty "Handful" Grimkae, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimkae household. The Grimkae's daughter Sarah has known from an early age she's meant to do something large in the world, but she's hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, she's given ownership of ten year old Handful, who's to be her handmaid. Over the next thirty-five years, both women strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other's destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement, and the uneasy ways of love.
