Walter Cole, a Californian exile who dodged the draft in 1917, emerges from the thorn forest of Paraguay's Chaco Boreal. Long years of solitude have left him on the brink of physical and mental breakdown. He finds sanctuary among the pacifist Mennonites who settled the area in the 1920's, but soon they all become trapped by the Chaco War, a ghastly, fruitless conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia, and the foreign governments and oil companies who urge them on. Tormented by the cruel landscape, malarial fevers, doubt and anger, and unable to extricate himself from the momentum of the fighting, Walter meets people who are also struggling to stay alive and sane. They communicate in many languages - Spanish, English, Plautdietsch, Guarani, Aymara, Ayoreo, and Lengua - but all share the experience of being engulfed by powers beyond their understanding. Some mirror his bitterness, infuriated by the sheer callous idiocy of the war. Yet others, who have experienced depths of suffering that Walter has never known, react with a strength and human sympathy that bring him to his knees in shame. His only path to redemption becomes to escape from the fighting, and live.