The book contains two novellas, the first, set in 1930 in a small town where a cinema has opened, focuses on the influence of filmgoing on a number of people with lives fractured by the Great War. The second is set in the summer of 1962, when a young man who was to begin divinity studies in the autumn is troubled by the God is Dead school of thought. He is encouraged to spend the summer vacation in the Holy Land for spiritual renewal. But his quest turns into a coming of age that changes him forever.