Though they both cannot use their penises, Jake still has the intense passion to be with women but is unable because of wound he received from World War I.

On the other hand, William still has his penis but he becomes fearful whenever he gets involved intimately with women to the point where intimacy and sex become self-described hell.

His one and only true love is the vivacious Rachel, who, like Brett Ashley, is the sexual focus of all the men in the novel.

The final act of the novel shifts to a remote, mountainous region where William and friends intend to sober up from the merrymaking, but instead find themselves involved in a violent incident involving the Earth People (an isolated settlement of rastas) and a racist police force.

Antoni's major themes—race (William is white, Laurence black, Rachel French-Creole) and sexuality—are good ones, but they're not sufficiently developed, and the plot feels somewhat manufactured".