The story opens with the main character, Roberto Alicante, a.k.a. "Alic" flying a combat mission in Vietnam and being threatened by a MIG fighter.
Too young for World War II, Roberto joins the military in 1947 and serves in the Korean conflict, Vietnam and the Cold War. He studies foreign languages and becomes an expert at playing the international cat and mouse game of intelligence gathering. He spends many years in Japan where he literally grows up and learns about life. Alic has a three-year affair with a Japanese woman but the alliance ends when he leaves Japan without her. She will not leave her homeland and Alic will not leave the service to live in Japan. It is the second time Alic has lost a potential wife. The first was a California girl who wanted to marry him but on condition that he get out of the service. Alic is torn between his love for Christina and his love of service to his country. They fail to resolve their differences and the love affair ends after five years. While enrolled in Russian studies at Syracuse University Alic meets and marries Stella, a girl who is not opposed to living the "Gypsy" life.
In chapter five Roberto is called home from the Vietnam War due to his father's terminal illness. On his 12 hour flight home Roberto reflects on his own and his father's life. In chapter six the story leaves the present (1969) and takes the reader back in time to south-central Mexico in the year 1900, then forward through the years leading up to Vietnam. The family's history is tracked and seen through the eyes of Roberto as he grows up.
The Alicante family's origins begin in Mexico where they face life's struggles head-on. In their lifetime they cope with poverty, revolution, world wars, discrimination, and within the family itself, cultural changes. The patriarch, Ignacio Alicante, severs his Mexican roots and a love/hate relationship with his mother to make his way to North America in 1900. He resolves to stay in his adopted country for the rest of his life but is drawn back to Mexico when his father becomes seriously ill. Ignacio feels trapped in Mexico. His situation is worsened by a revolution that grips Mexico in the mid 1900s. Putting his dream on hold, Ignacio marries sixteen-year old Alicia and starts a family but his desire to live in America burns like a fire in his heart. He leaves Alicia and their two daughters behind with a promise to return for them. With a pittance in his pocket and an old mule his only transportation, he embarks on a perilous thousand-mile trek across Mexico to the U.S. border. When his mule dies, he eats it for food. Twice revolutionaries capture him. The first time he is forced to join them but escapes. The second time he is charged with being a spy and faces a firing squad.
Alicia's strength and character are tested in the years Ignacio is absent. The revolution takes its toll on the village. Food becomes scarce. She is forced to forage for food in the mountains. Daily she digs in the earth with her bare hands for a treasured root or two to feed her family. In the process of searching for food her infant daughter is killed. Her situation worsens when a contingent of Federalistas comes to the village in search of horses. One of the soldiers attempts to rape Alicia. Her father kills the soldier with a machete but then becomes despondent with guilt and looses his zest for life.
Ignacio returns to find one daughter dead and the other possessed by his mother. Ignacio and Alicia leave Mexico but at the insistence of Ignacio's mother and against Alicia's wishes, they leave their daughter behind. They never see her again.
Ignacio and Alicia make a life in America. They cope with poverty and racism as they eke out a living in Colorado and later in California. They give life to ten children in America. They have one child after another as if to erase the loss of the first two in Mexico. I
