In the 1930s, reckless and bitchy Saara gives birth to a daughter she couldn't care less about. Her husband's parents take care of the baby and call her Solveig. Saara moves away with another man for a couple of years ("the most peaceful time in my life", says Solveig the narrator) but reappears a few years later like a bad dream. During the war, Solveig's gentle father develops psychological problems while Saara (Solveig hardly ever calls her "mother") entertains German officers in their small Helsinki flat. After the war Solveig starts trying her own wings, gets a good job and even a boyfriend, but the housing situation forces her to move back and forth between her constantly fighting parents and her grandmother, the person who always took best care of her.