The Divins, a prosperous, liberal, Jewish family, oppose the apartheid regime under which they live in 1970's Durban, South Africa. But when their 17-year-old son, Danny, falls in love with Santi, the mixed race daughter of a black domestic servant, they are thrown into a crisis of philosophy vs. parental concern. Danny's father forces him to end the relationship with Santi. Although Danny promises to find a way to work things out, after a year, he loses contact with her.

Tired of witnessing the hateful, divisive politics of South Africa that destroyed his relationship with Santi and his family, Danny leaves Durban and moves to Boston. On his first day there he meets a free-spirited but caring young woman named Tesseba who offers to marry him to save him from deportation. Danny and Tesseba build a life together but not a day passes that Danny's thoughts do not turn to his long lost love.

Twenty years after leaving, Danny returns to South Africa in the hopes of saving the family fortune and finding the girl he has never forgotten. It is here in this new, still struggling, still fragmented South Africa that Danny finally discovers where, and with whom, home really is.