Marjorie Forsythe is an intelligent woman who is let down by marriage and child-raising, when this is the expectation for women of the period. She finds this domesticity far from ideal and yearns for a time she can be on her own. She is sixty before that day arrives. It is 1970s Wellington, and the city beckons her to explore a different life, where her options and choices are based on her talents and intellect rather than on societal norms. The crux of the story deals with how she responds to this new dream. But will Marjorie's brittleness with family and friends soften when she finally has, as Virginia Woolf says, 'a room of one's own', and opportunities arise to be more than mere housewife or mother? Will she ever be able to give and receive the love she needs and others wish for?