June Han is only 11 years old when her family is torn apart by the Korean War. Her will to survive is far stronger than her capacity to heal and her emotional life is stunted so profoundly that it reverberates through the rest of her life. Hector Brennan, an American soldier, finds her on the road and takes her to an orphanage, where soon they meet Sylvie Tanner, the wife of the new missionary. Hector and Sylvie are both fighting their own demons, and the complicated bonds that arise in the intense environment of the orphanage leave none unmarked.

Moving back and forth between contemporary America and Europe, war-time Korea and the childhoods of Hector and Sylvie, Chang-Rae Lee weaves a profound and haunting tale that offers no easy path to redemption.