From the acclaimed author of Simple Prayers, hailed by Thomas Keneally as "a work of magic (and) a journey of wonder, " comes the rich and captivating tale of an extraordinary father and son. Jean Pierre Michel Chernovsky is a paragon of the Gilded Age, a product of both Old World and New, and a collector of all things beautiful. Benjamin Chernovsky is his adopted orphan of the Depression, a boy whose remarkable beauty is flawed by a strawberry birthmark on his right cheek and throat and whose mind is blessed with a disturbing and miraculous gift. United by something more binding than blood, rivals for the affections of one indomitable and exotic woman, they will embark upon an odyssey filled with wild adventures and startling discoveries, a journey that will alter them -- and their century -- forever.