Exile Space: Encountering Ancient and Modern America in Memoir with Essay and Fiction has three main sections:

1. "Multiple Horizons: Tales From the Life of a Refugee" is the often humorous account of a Hungarian refugee trying to assimilate into American life and in the process discovering the Ancient American cultures of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca.

2. "Stone Age Civilization in the New World" is a controversial memoir about Ancient America as it compares to Europe, as an overview written in the freedom of retirement. It is written as advice to the BBC, which had recently interviewed her for a program called Civilizations.

3. The Maya Vase is a novel of fantasy in the reconstruction of ancient Maya life as seen through the eyes of a graduate student as the author once was, with comparisons to modern American life.