Derek's technology is about to be sold to pornographers for a lot of money. His wife has left him, for that and other reasons, and he's having a hard time keeping existential focus. Into this maelstrom flies his dead father's account of Total War in the European theater of World War II. As he reads about his father's war, while struggling with the business deal and its ramifications for his idea of himself, he begins to expand his understanding not only of who his father was and the character of his country, but also of the ebb and flow of the seemingly conscious force of war. ..". he is waiting. I wonder what for. There is no justice for him or me. The terror of collapse is that no one will ever be held accountable for his death, for the rape of millions of his sisters, for the corruption of millions more, for the murder of tens of thousands of his children. For near-total devastation of all his history, property and wealth."