The history of a family that starts in the 19th Century with the Viscount of Itaboray and an enslaved Black woman with whom he has a son and gives him a refined education.
The author, a great-great-granddaughter of the Viscount racounts how the history of Brazil and the world interwoven with her family. Based on facts passed down from generation to generation, the story begins in1934 with the first meeting of her parents: Cecilia, the descendant of the Viscount, and her romance with Tancredo, the scion of a traditional family of coffee barons. Tancredo is a communist leader who is persecuted by Getulio Vargas' dictatorship in the 1930/1940's and later by the military dictatorship in the 1960's.
All this is set in the events of history of Brazil and the world, during the times when the characters lived and in which, in one way or another, they took part or were witnesses. The events include the construction of the Madeira-Mamoré railway through the Amazon Rainforest to Bolivia at the beginning of the 1900's; the First World War and the 1918 "Spanish" Flu Pandemic when it is believed 50 million people died and other events during the 20th Century.
In flashbacks, the author tells stories, like Alice's, the Viscount's spoiled granddaughter, and the prejudices she experienced as a Black woman in Portugal, to where she moved with her Portuguese husband when he returned to his homeland in 1914.
Cecilia's long suffering life, from her childhood to maturity, is at the center of story.