Two periods of Croatian history are interwoven in the stories of a sculptor and a student both seeking truths about their parents. Antun belongs to 1941, the time of the first Independent State of Croatia, and Dagmar, 1998, when a second attempt at independence was forged, following the Balkan War of 1992 - 1995. Set in Split, Zagreb and Hvar, the novel explores how a country like Croatia could implode into such violence; how history is still a living (and unspent) force for many and how might it be possible to trace out a future when so much has been broken and destroyed. Can a country torn apart by civil war ever know peace? Was the price paid for independence really worth it? In 1941, artist Antun Fiskovic experiences a sea-change in his fortunes following the revelation of the identity of his real parents, just as occupying forces take over the government of his country. Fifty years later, a young woman called Dagmar Petric begins a search for answers to the suicide of her father, a disgraced journalist in Tito's Jugoslavia. Antun and Dagmar's stories come together in 1998, in a newly independent Croatia. But what happens when the dead come to life?
This is the question that haunts both protagonists, a question that is only answered when Antun breaks his silence over the bitter legacy of a wartime killing by Branko Ostojic, a childhood friend and partizani hero, as the sculptor prepares for his retrospective.