At fifty-nine, Harold Snow has seen his share of death. Now serving on a decrepit tanker whose papers are as suspect as its seaworthiness, a weary Snow feels the end is creeping closer than ever. When the tanker is refused entry to the Bay of San Francisco, Snow and the rest of the crew embark on a scattershot voyage that will take the disintegrating hulk from South America to Africa. Along the way they will encounter hurricanes, crooked customs officials and tropical ports seething with vice and revolution. And mirroring this outer voyage, a twisted inner journey will strip Snow down to his bare essence as a man and confront him with a stark choice between life and death, damnation and redemption, at the western limit of the world.
