In the search for her father's origins, Agosin begins with the story of his parents, a tailor and a cigarette-maker who meet in Odessa in 1890. In their flight from persecution and their search for a better life, Abraham and Rachel Agosin travel to Istanbul, then briefly to Marseilles, where Moises is born in the interim between two long sea journeys, "saved from the waters" like the biblical Moses.

The family's continuing search for a home brings them at last to Quillota, Chile, a "city of churches and avocados," where they find a small measure of stability along with a large dose of prejudice. Moises Agosin's work makes him a respected research scientist, but decades after his parents' voyages; as Chile falls under the dictatorship of Pinochet, he must take his family on their final journey of exile, to the United States.