 Nora struggles to submerge her various artistic and unconventional selves in favour of a more socially acceptable constructed persona.Nora uses the "spinning globe," her equivalent of the Lady of Shalott's "crystal mirror," to explore the various stages and facets of her life, and to conceal some of its more unsavoury aspects from herself, and from the reader.The novel began its life as a 20,000-word novella, which was prize-winning in its own right.