This nov­el trans­ports a famil­iar Jew­ish immi­grant sto­ry into an unusu­al set­ting. Samuel Berkow, a Ger­man Jew, escapes Nazi Ger­many on a ship to Guatemala. He arrives in the port town of Puer­to Bar­ras and plans to con­tin­ue trav­el­ing to find his cousin, who has set­tled in Guatemala City. He is imme­di­ate­ly over­tak­en by lethar­gy and both real and fan­tas­ti­cal delays. The super­nat­ur­al ele­ments are in the spir­it of Latin Amer­i­can fic­tion, while the real­is­tic banana repub­lic ​“mañana” men­tal­i­ty per­vades. The read­er is swept into the mind and body of a prop­er­ly groomed Ger­man native who sud­den­ly finds him­self in a Third World trop­i­cal town. There are flash­backs to scenes in the piv­otal rela­tion­ships in Berkow’s past, with his uncle, cousin, and exwife. Local pol­i­tics and unsa­vory char­ac­ters threat­en to unhinge this new immi­grant as he attempts to move on with his new life.