Review

Coarse, brutal, and elementally powerful...It revives one s faith in the future of fiction. --Chicago Tribune

Inventive and extremely well-written...incredibly moving and disturbing...a remarkable performance. --San Francisco Chronicle

Matthiessen has produced, in expertly crafted and sometimes deeply affecting prose, an entertainment full of glittering color, nose-to-nose conflict and heroic gestures. --Washington Post Book World

Product Description

In a malarial outpost in the South American rain forest, two misplaced gringos converge and clash. Martin Quarrier has come to convert the fearful and elusive Niaruna Indians to his brand of Christianity. Lewis Moon, a stateless mercenary who is himself part Indian, has come to kill them on behalf of the local comandante. Out of their struggle, Peter Matthiessen has created an electrifying moral thriller, a novel of Conradian richness that explores both the varieties of spiritual experience and the politics of cultural genocide.