Two friends - Walter Dunmore and Al Clark - are the only members of their bomber crew to survive an air force plane crash in Canada during World War II. But they must struggle with the sub-zero wilderness of Newfoundland's Labrador coast until help arrives. Meanwhile, on the home front, in a small farming community, Walt's wife Dottie struggles with her own battles- loneliness, anxiety and her attraction to a itinerant farm worker. Only one man comes home alive from Labrador, but the lives of their two families remain forever entwined. Years later, in Chicago where they've all moved, questions of loyalty and bravery ensnare their children. And as they confront the horrors of Vietnam one of them will be left to choose between revenge or sacrifice. The novel follows the characters into old age, when decades-old secrets are laid bare to redeem the present and illuminate the past.