From a back garden near Liverpool to the borders of Afghanistan, from Moscow to New York, author Paul L. McGregor takes us on a journey of discovery through fiction and journalism.

A son of the working class, he presents narratives that combine fictional portraits of those who today would be called underprivileged with journalistic pieces whose countercultural commentaries offer a reminder of long-lost and much-maligned cultural, spiritual, and personal values. In these tales, McGregor recalls his parents, his childhood home, and his working-class neighbourhood in England; the collapse of the workers’ paradise in Russia; and meeting the saintly Fr. Ho Lung in Kingston, Jamaica. Riding a bus to the Mexican border an ex-convict gives him a lesson in dignity, and centuries-old frescoes in Italy lead him to reflect on what future awaits the Western world.

By turns poetic and whimsical, this insightful collection of stories describes one man’s quest to sail off into the world and share the adventure.