In 1940, Charles A. Lindbergh, a heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president in place of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Shortly afterwards he negotiates with Adolf Hitler, which results in a good relationship. Meanwhile, the new government embarks on a program of anti-Semitism. For a boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of misadventures that threaten to destroy his small, safe part of America - and with it his mother, his father and his older brother.