An epitaph on a tombstone: “Alleged name Mary Stark. Died January 1, 1966. An Unknown Life.”

Of the three people most closely touched by Mary Stark, one is a young girl who learns—through her—what it means to be haunted. The second is an attendant in a mental hospital where Mary is a patient who to claims to know him; in searching for her in his memory, and in the record of his life as it is written or remembered by others, he finds clues to both their identities. And the third is a student at a small college who falls under the spell of Mary Stark, a woman whose bizarre powers almost destroy him.

Who Mary Stark really is, what she represents, and how the enigma of her life is finally solved- these the suspenseful elements of this fascinating and ingenious novel.