The story of Maudine Myrstoolkrwicz, a young woman living in a poor neighborhood, who has so many personal problems - she's not pretty, not smart, a virgin, too tall, too honest, scared, unlucky, nervous, shy, naive, lonely, unskilled, sad - that she develops an alter ego, Myrna, to deal with the harsh world around her. The setting is a run-down tenement building and the major characters are her colorful, very eccentric, co-tenants. An uplifting, though unusual, coming-of-age story set in the modern day.