Jan de Hartog's novel opens in Nazi-occupied Europe and moves on to the American South-west. At the heart of this immensely rich novel is the relationship of a Dutch girl, Laura Martens, and an American boy, Boniface Baker, who meet in a just-liberated Nazi concentration camp. They are both Quakers, but all else separates them: Laura has survived three years of the camp and bears no relation to the innocent girl whose father was caught trying to save Jewish babies. Bonny Baker, a devoted and idealistic ambulance driver, very American, very innocent, determines to save Laura, and he brings her back to the United States where they are soon launched upon a passionate and heartrending adventure. The story is played out against the background of today's Quaker and Indian life, both offering a generous variety of humanity and both striving to preserve or find moral and ethical values in a world that often seems mad -- a world that mocks the efforts of Quakers, and others, to achieve lives of non-violence, compassion and love.