The novel alternates between two voices. One is a Peruvian writer living in Florence, who is struck by a photograph of an Amazon people, the Machiguenga, and remembers a university friend who became fascinated by them. The other voice is that of a storyteller within the Machiguenga community, who carries their myths and news from settlement to settlement.
Through these two strands the book considers what it means to preserve a culture, the pull of modern society against traditional life, and the role of stories in holding people together. It is thoughtful, inventive and rooted in the author's long interest in Peru's Amazon.