Brooklyn, New York. Ninety-five year old Ernesto DiLentini, forgotten virtuoso from the era when mandolin reigned as the most rebellious instrument of the day, remembers everything . . . running away at 17 to join a 34-member Neapolitan plectrum orchestra, falling in love with a girl destined for the convent, socializing with rowdy Futurists, and making records for the Victrola in 1913. Perhaps a rock star before Rock, Ernesto recklessly achieves success beyond his wildest dreams . . . until the discovery of his affair with a married woman and the urgent need to escape her revolver-carrying husband put him on a merchant steamer sailing for La'Merica. Ernesto arrives in New York disguised in women's clothes, without baggage or passport, yet still in possession of his beloved mandolin. What should be a long prosperous career reaching far beyond the heyday of Coney Island, World War One, Prohibition, and Vaudeville, becomes the turbulent and bittersweet portrait of a brilliant career cut short, an enduring love for three heartbreaking sisters, and a dangerous association with an ominous man known only as il Lupo.