This is a story of a man (Walker), suffering from dwarfism, who writes an autobiographical account of his life. In flashbacks, we see how he was conceived to a woman (Parillaud) at the end of WWII as she attempts to smuggle herself to America on a troop ship. Caught, she is put ashore back in her homeland of Ireland where she struggles to bring up her dwarfed child. Then comes an ongoing affair with a man (Byrne) who becomes a surrogate father to the boy, teaching him about the stars and planets… and calling him “Frankie Starlight.” After that affair she meets with a man (Dillon) who takes her and the boy to America, but they are misfits in the prairie lands of the West and soon return home to Ireland where the boy grows to manhood as a writer.