1939. Janek leaves his ailing mother in Warsaw and goes to Italy with his two young daughters to become musical accompanist at a fledgling ballet company. Protected by a mysterious powerful patron the company is allowed to employ Jews despite Mussolini's racial laws. He will compose the music for a ballet entitled The Holy Land. But the music will be lost.

     The novel follows the fate of this missing music through the lives of various characters including a conscripted Israeli soldier who performs an act for which he can find no atonement and an elderly grieving Palestinian man who strives to give guidance to his granddaughter.

     There is hope and heartbreak in this beautifully written novel about the Holy Land as both an idea of mystical inspiration and a physical reality of pain and conflict.