The story of one individual life lived through the course of the twentieth century. We follow Logan Mountstuart, son of a British meat executive in Uruguay, as he engages on a hopeless first marriage. He is in solitary confinement during the war, loses his beloved second life, and becomes a mover and shaker in the art world. In the course of all this, he has brushes with the famous, from Picasso to the Duke of Windsor.