Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is orphaned when his parents jump off two different bridges within hours of each other -- the result of their separate involvements with the same neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. Wyatt is forced to move to a small town to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda. A chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is set in motion by the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring. Actual historical incidents lend intense narrative power to Norman's uncannily layered story.