In his captivating Norwegian family epic, Ketil Bjørnstad tells the story of the inhabitants of a house high above the Oslo fjord: Villa Europa, where Nina Ulven, at the end of the 19th century, decorates the rooms according to the countries her unfaithful husband visits. Over the decades, the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of the family leave their homeland, yet almost all return. It is primarily the women who preserve the house, which increasingly becomes the setting for conflicts between generations and genders.