The Turning Wheel is the second in a series of three novels based on Putu Oka's life in the years following the events of 1965. While the first volume in the trilogy, Threads of Dignity, is a fictionalized account of his own experience of arrest, torture, and imprisonment, The Turning Wheel is an exploration of the lives of women whose menfolk shared Putu Oka's fate. Struggling for survival in a hostile environment, these women not only have to supply the material needs of their husbands in prison-everything from food to medicines-but also provide for the immediate demands of their families for food, shelter, and education. As the years pass, the draw on inner reserves of strength and resourcefulness and a growing sense of group solidarity in a struggle that persists long after their men return to a world they no longer recognize.