From a psychiatric hospital, Peter Stonehouse, late of Sandhomen University, grapples with his family history as he edits a collection of manuscripts written during the last stages of the War of 1812. As he does so, he untangles his own experiences in Vietnam and those of his son in Iraq. Many characters both in history and in Peter's immediate experience retreat from life and from themselves. However, bands of roving pigs and well hidden hordes of unconventional treasure as well as simple...