It's 1972. When hot-headed, impetuous Jack Muir gets off the ship in Durban, he fails to get back on. Instead, he sails into misadventure, fleeing the stifling town of Genoralup to try to lose himself in South Africa. But the past has a way of catching up with you, and soon Jack is running again, this time to a kibbutz. In the course of a lifetime, Jack will travel far, always caught between fleeing from and seeking those things he needs: a mother's precious gift, the loss of a child, a kind and steady woman. And, across time and across continents, old Jack Muir will remember those who helped him become a decent man, a better father and a friend.