This novel of the emigrant experience is a moving witness to the Lebanese people and to a time, the civil war. Emily Nasrallah's narrative follows an elderly Lebanese couple who leave their village during the war to visit children and grandchildren in the New World. The war escalates dangerously during their visit, and the couple's children are reluctant to let their parents return home. Although much of the story takes place on Prince Edward Island and in New York, the behavior and rituals of the family are those of the village in southern Lebanon. Such traditions may not be necessary to life in the New World, but are nonetheless terribly painful for emigrants to discard.