While he was struggling, striving with no interest, to finish a thesis his professors had told him to, Emily goes on a field trip to Mexico with her fellow doctors and scientists to do research.

He takes shelter at a mountain estate where Doña Vera, the lecturer whose words inspired him, has turned into a center for studying Huichol culture.

The plot turns to Eric’s grandfather, telling the story of his perilous voyage to Mexico and the many Cornish immigrants who died, were killed, or were deported after all their hard work.

At the end of the novel, back in the present-day Sierra Madres, Eric attends a local festival called “La Noche de Los Muertos,” or “The Night of the Dead.” During the ceremony, he meets a spirit from the past, who shows him a glimpse into his own future.

And yet, despite this, the novel has the feel of being worked up from a tidbit stumbled upon in an archive or a guidebook, then trained along a trellis of neatly diagrammed meaning rather than allowed to grow wild in a thicket of character and situation.” [3]