Barry Al-Fayeed has been living in the United States for 20 years, during which he married fellow physician Molly Olson and had two children, Sammy and Emma, in Pasadena, California. This life belies the fact that at 16 he, under his birth name Bassam, escaped his family life in the Middle-Eastern country of Abuddin, where the Al-Fayeeds have been the dictatorial rulers for generations, normally of violent and repressive regimes which he could not morally tolerate. At his mother's urging he decides to return to Abuddin for the first time in those 20 years, with Molly and the kids in tow. He might find that leaving Abuddin this second time around is more difficult as he gets ensconced in the troubles the Al-Fayeeds are facing in general in continuing to rule the country as a repressive dictatorship. The longer Barry stays, the more it affects the only life of democratic freedom Molly, Sammy, and Emma have known up to this point.
—Huggo
