Abruptly expelled from his farm in Ecuador at the age of sixty-two, Moritz Thomsen indulges in that saddest of pleasures - travel - taking a trip to Brazil and ultimately a journey up the great Amazon River by boat.

Assaulted by ghosts and memories at every turn, as his journey unfolds he re-examines his life to understand how he came to be living a life of self-imposed poverty and hardship. Outwardly he sails up the Amazon towards Manaus, giving us poignant and limpid descriptions of the river, yet inwardly a shattering romantic symphony rages, running from the depths of human misery to life's small but exquisite transcendent pleasures. He spares the reader nothing.

Moritz Thomsen was born in America in 1915. He served as a bombardier in the Eighth Air Force during World War II and at the age of 48 became one of the early Peace Corps volunteers in Ecuador. After leaving the Peace Corps he stayed in Ecuador to become a farmer on the Esmeraldas River. He died in Guayaquil in September 1991.