A narrator reminiscent of the author, Miguel Syjuco, follows the death of the exiled writer Crispin Salvador and the disappearance of his manuscript into a maze where family history, national history, and literary history collide. Blending political satire with metafiction, the novel traces a story of memory and identity shaped by migration and return.

As the search for a missing manuscript unfolds, the memories of a country and a family rise in overlapping layers.