To protect the reputation of his beautiful and selfish wife, Jonas tells a small lie. She had often gone off with younger men since their wedding. In fact her family, most of the neighbours all knew this. So how could Jonas, the timid little bookseller foresee the dumb hostility and suspicion, the police inquiries, the ugly discoveries his little lie would provoke. Jonas is a Russian-Jewish immigrant who believes he has been accepted in the community of the market square where he has settled, and which he thinks of as home. But the hatred and resentment he has to endure as suspicion mounts reveal his true, terrifying isolation.