Isabel Allende's powerful tale of one boy's escape from the slums of Los Angeles This magnificent novel tells the story of Gregory Reeves, the son of Charles, an itinerant preacher As a boy, Gregory accepts the endless journeying and poverty which is his family's lot, never questioning the validity of his father's homespun philosophy of life - the Infinite Plan But, as manhood approaches, Gregory finds himself increasingly possessed by a yearning to escape Hankering after worldly wealth, he longs to break away from the barrio, the teeming Hispanic ghetto of downtown Los Angeles where his family has finally settled Gregory's quest, so different from his father's, takes him first to the killing fields of Vietnam, and thence to law school at Berkeley from where he pitches headlong into a hedonistic pursuit of the American Dream