Baker's novel focuses on two very different main characters. Sohail Pasha, a teenager in 1971, lives in what was then East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—where he fights for Bangladeshi independence from West Pakistan in the Liberation War. Intertwined with Sohail's life is the story of Brian Cook's aimless American adolescence in Missoula, Montana, full of joyriding, inner-tubing, and acid-dropping. After college and med-tech certification, Brian chucks everything in the early 1980s to wander around Europe, Egypt, Israel, and the subcontinent, eventually ending up at Sohail's train station, [remainder spoiler description removed.]
Baker's yarn, inspired by his own experiences traveling in India, offers a gripping account of the bloodbath during Bangladesh's war with West Pakistan, and a rich panorama of '70s Bangladeshi culture—the gentle rhythms of village life, the subtle web of familial obligations, and the delicate negotiations over arranged marriages. There's a pronounced tonal clash between the stories of his main players: Sohail's life is full of purpose and drama amid tragic upheavals, while Brian's is a feckless ramble as he drifts through the world trying to find himself, with his primary concerns being to sidestep con artists and safeguard his backpack. It's never clear where the novel is going, but Baker's prose is vivid and punchy, especially in describing Sohail's brushes with death: “Warm blood was still flowing from the torsos and skulls of the squad of West Pak soldiers. Dirty red rivulets flowed along the spaces between pavement stones on the lane.”