In 1958, Carlos Monge McKey sneaks out of his home in the middle of the night to fake his own death. He does not return for four years. A decade later, his son, Carlos Monge Sánchez, deserts his family too, joining a guerrilla army of Mexican revolutionaries. Their stories are unspooled by grandson and son Emiliano, a writer, who also chooses to escape reality by creating fictions to run away from the truth. This is a fictionalized memoir that delves into the fractured relationships between fathers and sons, grandfathers and grandsons; that disinters the ugly notions of masculinity and machismo that all men carry with them—especially in a patriarchal culture like Mexico. It is the story of three men, who—each in his own way—flee their homes and families in an attempt to free themselves.