This book follows two stories, one fiction and one science fiction/utopian fiction. It's a very interesting blend of these two genres, as well as others like feminist fiction. This book carries so many themes but weaves them all delicately and expertly together, defying pigeonholing in any one category.
In the main storyline, Consuela Ramos has a history of trouble with the law and mental institutionalization. When she tries to defend her niece from her niece's pimp, she ends up on the wrong side of the law again - her pimp, claiming to be the niece's boyfriend, tells the police that Consuela was violent without cause, and Consuela once again lands in a mental institution. Frustrated by her niece's betrayal of her (the niece took the pimp's side in order to protect herself) and desperately trying to overcome her past, she is determined to go along with what the doctors advise her to do in order to escape from the institution as soon as possible. Consuela is a troubled protagonist and Piercy's experienced authorial skill renders her sympathetic and complex, a victim of society's inequities and in turns despairing and full of hope.
The other storyline complicates the story of Consuela's mental difficulties. Consuela begins to receive visits from a person from the future, and eventually begins to travel to the future to visit a metamorphosized Earth society. Piercy's skillful juxtaposition of the two stories leave the reader wondering if Consuela's anguished life has caused her mind to retreat into a hopeful hallucination of the future, or if Consuela's future visits could be true (readers of magical fiction and sci/fi fantasy might find this second option easier to consider).
Piercy's world-building both of the realistic, painful present that Consuela endures and of the complex, problematic yet hopeful future that she visits make this book a pleasure to read. Readers of fiction and of magical fiction and science fiction will all find something appealing here. The utopian/dystopian element of the future will also appeal to many fans of books like 1984 and Brave New World.