This book occasionally exhibits beautiful, poetic writing, but it has no plot. It's impossible to tell what's happening at any point. The writing, despite the beautiful images, is thoroughly opaque and nonsensical. It's sort of about a man during the Civil War who goes back to a plantation where he once worked as a scribe to see if his promiscuous, mysterious ex-mistress is still there -- I think. I *think* he's remembering all this while he's on his way to a Northern prison camp. It's really pretty hard to tell. I don't recommend this.