Jefferson Long Soldier, a young Army veteran of Native descent, returns home safely from Iraq and is convinced that the novel he carried with him over the ocean and across the desert (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez) saved his life. Reuniting with his family after almost four years away, Jefferson attempts to reclaim his peaceful life in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But when heart-breaking memories of war will not be quelled, Jefferson travels south across the border to Mexico on a borrowed motorcycle to find his hero, the great writer behind the magic of the life-saving classic novel.