At the heart of this history of two families are the stories of two flawed and charismatic men. Joseph O'Neill's grandfathers—one Irish, one Turkish—were both imprisoned during the Second World War. The Irish grandather, a handsome rogue from a family of small farmers, was an active member of the IRA and was interned with hundreds of his comrades by de Valera's governent. O'Neill's other grandfather, a debonair hotelier from the tiny and endangered Turkish Christian minority, was imprisoned by the British in Palestine, where he was traveling to buy lemons, on suspicion of being an Axis spy.

Joseph O'Neill set out to investigate the imprisoments of his grandfathers, which were veiled in family silence, and found himself having to come to terms with shared and longstanding memories of violence; with a legacy of fierce commitment and political blindness; and with the enchanting and confusing power of nationalism and the fear and complicity of the bystander. He was changed by what he found, and he has written a remarkable book about the ties and limits of kinship. With great tact, he sets the stories of individuals against the history of the last century's most inhuman events.