In the wilds of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Robert Corvus Strang is crawling through the woods. A beautiful Costa Rican woman is dancing in a string bikini, and a dissipated writer is trying to stay on his feet....All three have retreated to this isolated land -- where Strang, builder of dams and bridges, preacher of gospels, lover of women, explorer of limits, launches into the story of his monumental life. In a novel that stretches from Michigan to Africa and the Amazon, Strang leads his listeners across rivers of time, through the nature of innocence, politics and desire, to a final and stunning defiance of life's frailty.