Pynter Bender is a child of the cane fields of Grenada, the second smallest independent state in the world. This novel, experienced through a boy born blind but whose eyes are healed, charts the painful awakening of a rural population, essentially organised around serfdom, into a raw and uncertain future that can only be achieved through fighting, a civil war that Pynter is drawn in to.

From the 1930s through the dawning of a new century, these tender and moving stories underscore living life with style and hidden steel despite one's circumstances and warn against disregarding the past struggles of others.

Long ago, so the stories say, the old-fathers came to Nanagada through a worm's hole in the sky. Looking for a new world to call their own, they brought with them a rich mélange of cultures, religions, and dialects from a far-off planet called Earth. Mighty were the old-fathers, with the power to shape the world to their liking—but that was many generations ago, and what was once known has long been lost.