This is a romantic story of secret pasts, heartbreak and reconciliation as seen through the
eyes of three central characters: Angus McIntyre, a clever, shy young man with a god-
bothering father; Pete Jagoda, a personable and ambitious son of Polish Jewish
immigrants, and Françoise Delores, the beautiful daughter of a French painting contractor.
The narrative captures their roller coaster lives in 1968, 1988 and 2008. At age
twenty, the two young men, following the spirit of the times (1968) throw-up their steady careers – Angus studying at University and Pete as a trainee accountant, to hitchhike to Marrakesh.
On their journey they buddy up with Franςoise and their travelling gets diverted to the girls’ hometown, Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France. The two young men take
summer work as villa painters for the Franςoise’s curmudgeonly father.
The narrative follows the ups and downs of the three protagonists over the next forty years – divorces, financial ruin and recovery. Eventually, the baby boomers throw off their youthful abandon and mature into a sense of reckless normality.
In parallel to their lives another story of unfulfilled love unfolds in 1944 occupied France as the war turns against the increasingly belligerent German invaders.
The consequences of the past never die.