A novel of people far from home and far from the selves of their origins, River Dragon Sky is the story of Junping, a Taoist street seer turned arsonist, Zhuan He, the girl he is sure is the daughter he abandoned years earlier, and Kal, an American who seems to have traveled to China for girls and kung fu. Long-buried memories emerge, and fragmented lives converge and assemble themselves in new ways, as fires spring up around the rural university where Kal teaches and Zhuan He studies. While pressures of Eastern tradition complicate Kal and Zhuan He's chances, someone with murderous intentions is stalking them. Will Junping be their savior, or their killer?