Twelve-year-old Ben Aronbach doesn't fit in anywhere. In his small town in mid-80s, he's an English-speaking Jew among Afrikaans Christians; in the small congregation of Jews in town, he's the boy from the family of lapsed shul-goers.

Twelve-year-old Ben Aronbach doesn't fit in anywhere. In his small town in the 1980s, he's a Jew among Christian Afrikaners; among Jews, he's the boy from a family of lapsed shul-goers. But when he meets Leo Fein, he thinks he's found his place. Fein, however, has designs on Ben's mother and her modest fortune. As the end of apartheid approaches, Ben is thrust among political fugitives and right-wing extremists in an attempt to save his family and find redemption for his part in their downfall.