In 2008, a fight over land in a seaside town near Rome spirals into a deadly battle between organized crime, corrupt politicians and the Vatican.

Musician Max Tooney goes to sell his prized Conn trumpet to a music shop, where he plays the instrument one last time. The shopkeeper recognises the song as one on a record matrix he found and asks who the piece is by. Tooney tells the story of an infant found abandoned in the first class dining room of the four-stacker ocean-liner SS Virginian on 1 January 1900. Danny Boodman, a coal-man from the boiler room, names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900, after himself, the fruit crate the boy was found in, and the year, and raises him as his own.

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

Ferro and Cate, two kids trying to get to grips with an unplanned pregnancy, their families (rebellious Ferro’s hospitable, ‘normal’ family, and level-headed Cate’s unhinged, atypical one), exams at school, friends and a general lack of jobs.