Viktor and Liesel Landauer settle into the beautiful new home in 1920s Europe, hoping to leave behind the old-world styles and values that have shaped them, and find their marriage strained by changing loyalties, hidden secrets, and the dangers of the coming war.

Interweaves story and dream, past and present, and philosophy and poetry in a sardonic and erotic tale of two couples--Tomas and Teresa, and Sabina and her Swiss lover, Gerhart. A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals--while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything...

A white carrier pigeon loses its way when it tries to fly home to the Baltic coast, where a young girl anxiously awaits it. Lost, tired, and ill, the bird lands in Prague. It is rescued by an artist and then gradually brought back to health by a small, frail boy. People's lives are changed forever by their encounter with the bird.

"Czechoslovakia, 1969. Seventeen-year-old Pavol has watched his country's freedoms disappear in the wake of the Soviet Union's invasion. He's seen his own dreams disappear too. In a desperate, fatal act of protest against the oppressive new government, he sets himself on fire in public, hoping to motivate others to fight for change. Instead, Pavol's death launches a government investigation into three of his closest friends. Štěpán finds his Olympic...