Starting from the distance that separates him from asteroid 121019 Minodamato, the narrator embarks on an emotional journey in search of the many lives of his grandfather, Mino Damato: from reporting on some of the most devastating conflicts of the postwar era to the bright lights of 1980s television, and finally to his encounter with an HIV-positive orphan who would change his life forever. As fragments of family, personal and collective memory are pieced together, Mino’s boundless fascination with the cosmos emerges as the thread connecting a life that seems impossible to decipher.