The daughter of a rich Greek family in Constantinople escapes from her dysfunctional family by getting romantically involved with a handsome visiting peasant. This union produced a little boy, Anthony Boyun-egri-oglou.

Anthony grew up during troubling times. He saw very little of his father, who left for Constantinople and then Russia, to escape from being drafted in the Turkish army. He grew up in the shadows of the Ottoman Empire as it was going through major revolutions and wars. The First World War (1914-1918) followed, causing shortages and anguish on Cappadocian Greeks and Turks alike. After this war, the disastrous Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) began. In the ensuing truce, Greece and Turkey agreed to an exchange of populations.

The uprooting (1924) of the Boyun-egri-oglou family involved an arduous trip, involving cart, rail and ship transports. These people left almost twelve hundred years of history behind, to seek freedom and self determination in a troubled state, overburdened with refugees. The struggle of the refugees is recounted by Anthony very graphically.

In 1940, after several recoveries and disasters, Greece enters into war with Italy, turning Anthony’s hopes for recovery into an impossible dream.