Named by her psychic mother after Joan of Arc, the French peasant girl whose psychic powers changed the course of history, Joan steadfastly pursues her dream of becoming a professional psychic.
While the time of the story is the mid-1960s, the setting could be any town in the United States, though this town happens to be near enough to the nation's capital for Joan's husband to commute to work at the State Department.
The stunningly beautiful Joan has married Chuck Johnson, a Yale graduate from an immensely wealthy family. Chuck's disbelief in psychic phenomena and Joan's disrespect for money, and all it represents, propel the two into conflict.
By the end of four years of marriage, with two children between them, ages two and three, the conflict turns ugly. Will Joan become a professional psychic, or will she follow Chuck to Kenya as the obedient wife of a Foreign Service Officer on his first assignment abroad?