With this masterly novel, Jose begins the story of four generations of a Filipino family as it is embroiled in the turbulent history of its nation, a country often colonized and exploited but also culturally vital and vibrant.

A family of tenant farmers is forced to flee its village and run from the local civil guard, led by a young healer. Settling in the small town of Rosales, they work for the chance at a new beginning, but they soon have to make horrific sacrifices in a war that no one wants.

Jose carefully begins to reconstruct a portrait of his country, portraying the terrible physical and emotional hardships the people endure as their country is transformed by the "liberation" from Spanish rule -- and the oppression that remains, even after the Americans take over. Far from drawing a picture of hopelessness, however, Jose has achieved a fiction of extraordinary scope and passion.