This is a book made of looks. Looks at pictures, the artists who painted them and the intimacy of the narrator and her surroundings. In these pages The Greek braids secret ties with a walk through a redwood forest near San Francisco, disease and death; Rothko and the mystery of the pictures for the Four Seasons that refused to surrender crisscross with a hospital where the narrator's husband receives chemo; The customs officer Rousseau and the banquet organized by Picasso in his honor connect with the fear of flying.