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In 1999, Sinan is caught up in everyday problems. Despite hardships, he must be a role model for his nine-year-old son Ismail, who is preparing for his coming-of-age ceremony. Meanwhile his teenage daughter Irem grows more resentful of having to help her mother run the house, cover her glorious hair beneath a headscarf, and refrain from watching Western television. But the delicate stability of this family is about to be tested in the wake of an earthquake that will strip Sinan of his home and livelihood. Reliant upon missionaries running the camp they now call home and morally indebted to an American whom he distrusts (and whose son Dylan exerts a frightening pull on Irem), Sinan becomes entangled in a series of increasingly dangerous decisions. Pushed towards a final betrayal, Sinan may yet find that everything he holds dear is destroyed, like the streets of Istanbul that lie in rubble beneath his feet.