What Maisie Knew tracks the plight of Maisie Farange, whose parents, Beale and Ida, are in the thick of a bitter divorce battle. The novel follows our innocent heroine as she charts these unsettling waters, as the adults that make up her world shift her like a pawn, and new role models enter her orbit, offering solace and possible escape. James wields his notoriously complex prose with a light touch in this delicately played and poignant drama, seen through the eyes of a child who has seen too much.