In 1876, a group of Poles emigrate to the United States to found a "utopian" commune in California. Sontag's gripping narrative shows us an exotic, still largely empty, up-for-grabs southern California, with European newcomers lording it over native Californians and Native Americans.

When the commune fails and most of the emigres return home, Marina Zalenska stays, learns English, and forges a new, triumphant career on the American stage. Marina forms her own company and crisscrosses the country in her private railroad car, year after year, eventually playing opposite Edwin Booth, the greatest American actor of the age.

In America is about many things: a woman's search for self-transformation; the fate of idealism; a life in the theatre; the many varieties of love; and, not least of all, stories and storytelling itself.