Shifting between love affairs, friendships, and enmities of multiple generations, this rich and complex saga follows a life spent on the water as Carlos, an orphan living in a Spanish hacienda, runs away to sea. Sprawling in its themes and geography—from the Golfo de Valencia to Calcutta, from London to Sydney, and from South Dakota to Broome—this narrative concerns the wanton destructiveness of human beings and their slender opportunities for redemption.