"A harmless-looking letter drops onto the doormat in Stephen Rose's Somerset home like an unexploded bomb. It is a summons to an inquiry in Belfast, asking him to give testimony about his participation in a disastrous event during the Troubles–one he has long worked to forget. An ailing ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic, Stephen has just begun to build a fragile bond with Maggie, the adult daughter he barely knows. For two years, he has worked...

"A bitter drunk forsakes civilization and takes to the Mexican jungle, trapping animals, selling their pelts to buy liquor for colossal benders, and slowly rotting away in his fetid hut. His neighbors, a clan of the Lacodón tribe of Chiapas, however, see something more in him than he does himself (dubbing him Wise Owl): when he falls deathly ill, a shaman named Black Ant saves his life-and, almost by chance, in driving out his fever, she exorcises...