One evening in 1938, Mrs Wakefield - the daughter of a slave and the founder of an African-American college in South Florida - hosts a dinner that reunites Julian Rose with his parents, who have been rescued from the Nazis by her college. There, Kendall Wakefield and Julian meet for the first time, and from that unlikely encounter begins a 30-year, on-again off-again affair that will take the lovers from Miami Beach to Greenwich Village to postwar life in Paris.
Throughout their travels, they will encounter the likes of Sartre, Picasso and a host of other artists, writers and intellectuals just as they are in the process of redefining culture for a new generation. Through it all, their longing for each other remains a constant in the ceaseless sweep of time.