Young, flame-haired Lucie raises horses on her father’s farm. One summer day, she meets a dark, handsome stranger, Joseph, and it is love at first sight. But their union is as improbable as their love is deep. For Joseph is a wanderer, a full-blooded gypsy, a man for whom all Europe is a stomping ground. Overcoming their cultural differences, they marry, have three children, and lead a normal life--with one exception: each spring, their life is suspended as Joseph returns to his other family, the gypsies, scattered to the four corners of Europe.

More than a touching love story between a gypsy and a settled countrywoman, Duke of Egyptis also an exploration of gypsy identity, as revealed over centuries and across continents. Returning to and wandering with his own people, Joseph again becomes one of them, becomes part of their long oral history. Through the stories he relates to his enthralled wife when he returns home for the winter, the reader can glimpse the sweep of the gypsy experience--the joy of the open road, the campfires, the storytelling itself; the despair at the unremitting persecution and pursuit to the nearest border, and ultimately to the gates of Auschwitz. It is a tale of glory overshadowed always by grim reality. Yet when the private world of Joseph and Lucie is rent, the strength of their love and the strength of the gypsy spirit fuse to lift their story onto a shimmering new plane.