1935: The German historian Julius Steinberg flees Nazi Germany to the USA because of his Jewish origins. After a dramatic odyssey through the misery of exile, he finds personal and professional happiness as a professor at Vermont’s Centerville College. Yet when, through no fault of his own, he finds himself caught up in the machinery of McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt, Steinberg’s American dream turns into a nightmare.
Half a century later, during the year of the Iraq War, the writer Moritz Carlsen goes to teach at Centerville College as a writer-in-residence for six months. The working conditions are good, the salary commensurate and the omnipresent patriotism with which the Americans support their troops in Iraq seems nothing but an annoying compulsory exercise in Centerville. But then, by chance, Carlsen happens upon some letters and unpublished notes by Julius Steinberg – written while he was in jail. Initially driven by curiosity, Carlsen begins to delve into the adventurous life of the historian, who emigrated 50 years earlier, uncovering a dark secret in the process. In a present steeped in mistrust and hysteria, he experiences the bitter reality of history repeating itself. For Carlsen has brought disturbing events to light that no one in Centerville wants to remember…
