Hanif Khan's journey through life subsumes the history of Pakistan, the country whose creation he as a young man had passionately believed in. His tempestuous marriage to Anita Waterhouse, daughter of a wealthy Englishman in Karachi, on the eve of Partition and the creation of Pakistan, their attempts to deceive and hurt each other, and the consequences of all this for the next two generations - this is a story of epic dimensions.