A winegrower ruined by the Great French Vine Blight takes his one surviving vine stock and boards a ship for California. But the new life he has in store is not the one he had imagined - taken ill aboard ship, he is forced to disembark at Valparaiso, where a misunderstanding at the customs post finds him rebaptized after his birthplace, Lons-le-Saunier: the Lonsonier family is born in Chile.

Making the journey in reverse, his sons return to defend the motherland in 1914, and the ghosts of the war live on across the Atlantic, in a house with three lemon trees and a garden filled with birds, for years to come.

From the depths of the trenches to the soaring peaks of the Andes and the shadow of dictatorship, the personal stories of the Lonsoniers collide with key moments in a century of global history, painting a vivid picture of what is both gained and lost through migration. This pocket-sized family saga confirms the rich imagination and storytelling talents of exciting young author Miguel Bonnefoy.