Through a combination of journal entries and third person narrative the reader accompanies Adam on his return to Lebanon after a 25 year absence. He analyses his struggle with his own choices and identity through comparisons with the paths his friends have taken and how they are impacted by war, race, religion and politics. This novel is big in both themes and scope, but also offers intimate moments of beauty and tenderness.
In returning to my submerged county, I thought to save some relics of my own past and that of my people. On that score, I no longer hold out much hope. In trying to delay foundering, one runs the risk of hastening the inevitable .... That said, I do not regret having undertaken this journey. It is true that every evening I rediscover the reason why I left my native land; but every morning I also rediscover the reason why I never truly abandoned it. My great joy has been to find amid the floodwaters a few small islands of Levantine delicacy, or tranquil tenderness. And this, at least for the moment, has given me a new thirst for life, new reasons to struggle, perhaps even a quiver of hope.
