Epic and nonlinear in nature, A Good High Place chronicles the lives of two women - Luella and Kachina - who, like the orbit of the sun and the moon, both attract and repel each other. Luella's suspicion that her younger sister - who supposedly died at birth - is being raised as the sister of Kachina sets her on a path of self-discovery that generates more questions than answers.

Set during the years prior to Worl War I in Elk Rapids, Michigan, A Good High Place addresses familial struggles and those of a nation moving inexorably toward the age of the automobile. The sometimes painful adaptations of a faster-paced age are embodied, in part, in the struggles of Luella's father who, already troubled by the death of his wife, wrestles with the realization that his livelihood as a steamboat captain is becoming obsolete.