The Iron and the Sun is a coming-of-age story that follows the Moshkovitz family who have fled from Israel to the orchard-filled village of Arcadia, California which is nestled in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley.
Intimately portrayed is the family's experience of being "strangers in a strange land", and the son's understanding of home and what it means to belong to a people when he encounters the local farmboys who become his lifelong friends.
The story explores themes such as the effects of industrialization on individuals and agricultural communities, the American dream for immigrants, and the concept of people belonging to the land instead of vice versa. It does not hold back on the portrayal of violence of countrymen against fellow countrymen, and the horrors of war - including scenes of torture in Eastern Europe, where two friends from the same village get deployed to.