Time and whakapapa slowly unravel as Talia Marshall weaves her way across Aotearoa in a roster of decaying European cars. Along the way she will meet her father, pick up a ghost, transform into a wharenui, and make cocktail hour with Ans Westra. Men will come – Roman, Ben, Isaac – and some go. Others linger. And it is these men – her father, Paul, and grandfathers Mugwi Macdonald and Jim; her tipuna Nicola Sciascia, tohunga Kipa Hemi Whiro, Kupe himself – who she observes as she moves backwards into the future. With her ancestor Tutepourangi she relives Te Rauparaha’s bloody legacy, and attempts and fails to write her great historical novel.