Through the lives of three siblings living in Hiroshima, Japan, Terry Watada explores the sweep of history during the years 1930 to 1945. The youngest, Chisato Akamatsu, travels to Canada looking for a new life but is confronted by the brutalities of immigration, a troubled marriage and the humiliation of the Japanese internment by the Canadian government. Hideki, the only brother, joins the military to fight for the Emperor and find "glory" in China, but finds only the fallacy of patriotism, the brutality of war, and the futility of existence. Chiemi, the oldest, was in the city when to the atom bomb hit. The three encapsulate the hopes, fears, dreams, the inhumanity of the period and resiliency of humans caught in historic events. In his fourth novel, Canadian poet, dramatist, and novelist Terry Watada delves into the Pacific War, looking at WWII from a Japanese perspective, unique in Canadian literature.