When after years of secrecy Ariel Rankin learns that her birth father is not who she had always believed he was but rather a man named Kip Calder who went to Vietnam before she was born and then disappeared into Laos as a covert warrior her world is shaken to its core. When she herself becomes pregnant by a man who wants no part of parenthood Ariel realizes she can no longer elude her buried past if she is to have any future. She decides to leave behind her life in New York City and everything she knows to head west to find the mysterious Calder. Ariel s search will lead her from the holy village of Chimay? New Mexico to Los Alamos and the pueblo valley of Namb? and ultimately across the restricted badlands of the White Sands proving grounds. Morrow conjures an array of dynamic strong- willed individualists whose own distinct quests for home converge with Ariel s. Audaciously weaving social with magic realism he offers a rhapsodic portrait of how faith family and self-identity are inscribed in each of us uneasy heritages it is our burden to discover and embrace.