Told in the voice of an elderly former African American slave, Cezanne Pinto, this fictional memoir traces his escape from slavery in Georgia to Canada, his return to the U.S. to fight in the Civil War and his years as a cowboy in Texas. With his mother sold to another slave owner, Cezanne fends for himself on his master's plantation. But, before she was wrenched away, his mother told him to run away, and in the company of Tamar, an older female slave, he makes the break for Canada. Along the way, they learn that freedom is not the same for everyone; even in "free" lands, black people have fewer rights than whites. Based upon the life of a real person, Stolz writes outside her own culture to offer Cezanne's life as a way to think about social justice and equality for all.

In his old age Cezanne Pinto recalls his youth as a slave on a Virginia plantation and his escape to a new life in the North.