Fiume, September 1919. Two hundred volunteers led by the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio occupy a city on the Croatian coast with the goal of establishing an independent state affiliated with Italy: the Free State of Fiume. For fifteen months the writer will try to create a government "of free and heroic men" and to this end will develop all the arguments and trappings that will be employed to bring about the rise of fascism in the following two decades.  Thirty years later, Tristram Vedder, who was the New York Tribune's correspondent at the time, returns to Italy accompanied by his family to visit the place where his younger son died in the recent Italian campaign. Visiting scenes from the past will cause Vedder to relive his time in Fiume, the rise of fascism, his initial admiration for it and all the ways in which that period changed his life.