The characters in this novel are refugees of a type Ellis Island never saw: aristocrats and intellectuals, the gay and cynical, the pampered and the poverty-stricken, white-collar immigrants waiting at America's back door for quota numbers they don't even know they'll get.

Here at the Colonia Gomez in Tijuana, only four hours away from Los Angeles live:

Klaus Eckert, whose lovely American wife, Jennifer, drives down from Hollywood every week-end; Lankowski, Polish pianist and his wife, Irmgard, whose lover has deserted her; Emil Klabee, who was once one of the wealthiest men in Czechoslovakia, and his desperately efficient wife; the Old Man and the Kid, strange pair; and finally the irrepressible bounding Tibor Szolnay—big handsome bundle of bad news.

Set against a background of bull-ring and adobe hut, against the background of beckoning security across the California border, this tense and dramatic love story reveals a new setting and situations which make the tragedy and heartbreak, the true love and fulfillment doubly poignant.