En åldrande Manhattan societetsdam lever på de sista smulorna av sitt arv, flyttar till en mindre lägenhet i Paris med sin son och katt.

En berömd författare samlar sina vänner för att ha lite kul och låta gamla sår läka på ett kryssningsfartyg. Hennes nevö är med och käbblar med kvinnorna och blir kär i en ung författaragent.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

"Kon-Tiki" was the name of a wooden raft used by six Scandinavian scientists, led by Thor Heyerdahl, to make a 101-day journey from South America to the Polynesian Islands. The purpose of the expedition was to prove Heyerdal's theory that the Polynesian Islands were populated from the east- specifically Peru- rather than from the west (Asia) as had been the theory for hundreds of years. Heyerdahl made a study of the winds and tides in the Pacific, and by simulating conditions as closely as possible to those he theorized the Peruvians encountered, set out on the voyage.

Sommaren 1973 reser fem män och sex kvinnor på en flotte över Atlanten i ett av världshistoriens märkligaste vetenskapsexperiment. Syftet är att studera våld och konflikter men expeditionen blir snart omskriven i pressen som ”sexflotten”. Fyrtio år senare återförenas besättningen för att prata om vad som egentligen hände ombord.