Abruptly expelled from his farm in Ecuador at the age of sixty-two, Moritz Thomsen indulges in that saddest of pleasures - travel - taking a trip to Brazil and ultimately a journey up the great Amazon River by boat.

Assaulted by ghosts and memories at every turn, as his journey unfolds he re-examines his life to understand how he came to be living a life of self-imposed poverty and hardship. Outwardly he sails up the Amazon towards Manaus, giving us poignant and limpid descriptions of the river, yet inwardly a shattering romantic symphony rages, running from the depths of human misery to life's small but exquisite transcendent pleasures. He spares the reader nothing.