It's a mixture of two main stories. One, in modern times, occurs in the late 1960s in Chile (Arica and Santiago) and deals with teenagers'/young men's adventures from school to sex. The second story deals with the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (Peru, 1500s) until just before 1960s and deals with the conquest, colonization, and development of a character whose future generation descendant will connect with the first story in a get- together in Arica, Chile, where these two stories interconnect smoothly through a character called Lucas the Count. It could also be read as a collection of individual tales.