Lang Gore weaves a tightening and haunting tale of doomed love between Candace and Leland, while telling an intricate story of two families: one affluent and socially well placed and the other a high-spirited, free-thinking working class family. The writing is both lurid and lyrical, funny and fantastic. The cast of characters includes business barons, military mutineers, male molesters, mischief makers, woodworkers, wanton women, firefighters in the Pacific Cascades, subversive scholars, hapless hippies and hunters of jaguars with javelins in Argentina.