When poverty and anti-Semitism force the breakup and emigration of a Ukrainian family in 1898, they struggle to reunite and live by the moral code embodied in the powerful stones worn around their necks.
One brother is conscripted into the Russian army, but eventually becomes disillusioned with the revolution and the violence of being a soldier.
A second brother homesteads in Alberta until Ukrainians are interned during World War I. He angrily rebels, escapes a concentration camp, and seeks out a new life with his family in North Dakota.
Their sister survives a New York City sweatshop fire that kills their father, and with her black husband battles prejudices by starting an interracial dance hall and speakeasy in Prohibition-era New Jersey.
The youngest brother has a lucky life until he is drafted into the American army, where he worries over every shot he fires in the North Russia war, knowing his brother is fighting for the Bolsheviks on the other side.
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