In a small Michigan town, in the late 1950s, the widow Etta Klein - wealthy and Jewish - has for more than thirty years relied for aid, comfort, and companionship on her Black housekeeper Harriet Gibbs.

In a small Michigan town, in the late 1950s, the widow Etta Klein - wealthy and Jewish - has for more than thirty years relied for aid, comfort, and companionship on her Black housekeeper Harriet Gibbs.

Between 'Aunt Harry' and Etta, a relationship has developed that is closer than a friendship, yet not quite a marriage. They are inseparable, at once absurdly unequal and defined by a comic codependence.

Forever mourning the early death of her favorite son, Sargent, Etta has all but adopted Aunt Harry's nephew, the precocious, gay seventeen-year-old Oliver, who has been raised by both women.

Oliver is facing down his departure to college - and fending off the advances of Etta's cook, Nella Mae - when the household is disrupted by the arrival of a selfproclaimed 'warlock', one Maurice LeFleur, who has convinced Etta and Harry that he might be able to contact Sargent in the afterlife.