[1] The novel focuses on a veteran photojournalist named Clement Glass, and his struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of a church massacre.

The novel follows Glass as he travels from Africa to locations in Europe and North America, and tries to reconcile his memories, while dealing with a family crisis, eventually journeying to Brussels, where the perpetrator of the massacre may be in hiding.

She does note that this level of detail sometimes "weighs a little too heavily", however found the novel, as a whole, to be "profound" and "meditative", stating "it leaves the reader with a feeling of courage and, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, hope.".

[6] Additionally, Theo Tait also found the vastly varying themes to be the novels main detractor, stating "The book ricochets uneasily between moods and settings."

[7] In a review for The Spectator, Sebastian Smee offered the same sort of critique, stating "Much of [the novel] is sophisticated and provocative, but it feels like an intrusion in the midst of a promising fiction.