Two intwined stories separated across the years. The book tells of how Leo comes to terms with losing Eleni, the love of his life, in a bus accident whilst hiking through south America. Although being a scientist, Leo tries to take comfort in the teachings of a new age physicist ([side note]who gets the description of the big bang wrong) preaching the specialness of everything. Leo soon realises that if every thing is special, then nothing is.

The other story is about Moritz, who after falling in love with the rich girl in his town, enlists in the first world war to try to make himself worthy enough for her. After fighting in awful conditions Moritz is taken prisoner by the Russians to Siberia. After two years he then (having been told it would be suicide to attempt it) breaks out and sets off on his journey across Europe back to his love, Lottie. After 5 years away he is assumed dead, and she is betrothed to another man, however after reading of his ordeal and how it was his love for her that drove him on, she married Moritz.

The glue in the story is Leo's father Frank. Towards the end of the book, Frank tells Leo of how he used to be Fischel, a polish Jew that fled Berlin during the second world war on the last refugee boat. Moritz was his father, and Lottie his mother. Frank tells Leo of watching his dying father tell his story and his feelings of abandonment when his mother never followed him to England.

A powerful story interestingly told!