Benjamin describes the extreme social and geographic transformations in the United States during the previous century. Climate change and rising sea levels force the populations of the Eastern Seaboard's biggest cities inland, while submerging virtually all of Florida and much of Louisiana. The nation's capital relocates from Washington, DC to Columbus, Ohio, where lawmakers pass the Sustainable Future Act prohibiting the use of fossil fuels nationwide. Their industries and traditions threatened, five Southern states—South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas—secede from the United States, resulting in a Second American Civil War that kills 11 million people between 2074 and 2095. On July 3, 2095, the day the North and South are scheduled to sign a Reunification agreement, one of the few remaining Southern rebels releases a plague in Columbus that spreads throughout the country, killing 110 million people.

Benjamin belongs to the so-called Miraculous Generation born between 2074 and 2095. He escaped the consequences of war and plague because he moved to New Anchorage in the neutral state of Alaska at the age of six. Now a retired history scholar dying of cancer, Benjamin is ready to share the story of Sarat, a story he's kept a secret his entire life.