Shattered by his wife's death, and by his own role in it, successful
cardiologist Charles Anderson volunteers to assist with earthquake
relief in an impoverished Islamic country in a constant state of
conflict with its neighbor. But when the refugees he's come to help do
not appear and artillery begins to fall in the distance along the
border, the story takes an unexpected turn.
This haunting, resonant tour de force about one man's desire to live a
moral life offers a moving exploration of the tensions between poverty
and wealth, the ethics of intervention, the deep cultural differences
that divide the world, and the essential human similarities that unite
it.