Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his young daughter, is trying to find peace after the recent trauma of his wife's suicide. But his search for solitude is disturbed by is sister-in-law, and by two school friends who want his help in tracking down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protestor and never resurfaced. As Jack begins a journey that encompasses the past and the present in both Europe and the American South, he also begins a quest that will lead him to shocking and ultimately liberating truths.