In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja lives with his octogenarian mother, Zalfa. A beloved philosophy teacher and the neighborhood homosexual, Raja cherishes books, solitude, and order; Zalfa takes his need for privacy as a personal insult, demanding full access to his work and love life.
When Raja receives an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, it seems like a blessed escape from family suffocation and a country in crisis. But the opportunity instead forces him to revisit the very losses and betrayals he longs to forget.