A story of two outsiders spanning four turbulent decades.

In 1911 at a suffragette rally in Dublin, a young, strong-willed Catholic woman, Cara, meets a liberal-minded Jewish medical student, Joe. Recognising how her creative potential is being stifled by her conservative family, Joe gives Cara the confidence to become truly herself. Their love, crossing boundaries of convention and prejudice, binds them together. Until war intervenes.

Twenty years on in Manchester, their son Kerry, a pacifist, is a young man caught on the dangerous margins of society. A chance meeting with Oliver at an evening class awakens a longing he barely understands. Desperate to do the right thing, he suppresses his 'unclean thoughts' and marries Ursula.

As war clouds gather again, Kerry finds himself running a bookshop, his wife expecting twins, and his life balanced on a precipice.

Cara, by now a celebrated artist, confronts the cost of a lifetime spent maximising her talents at the expense of a satisfactory emotional life.