Jackson Penn’s complex upbringing prepares him for a range of experiences for which the description ‘character-building’ would not do justice. Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri in the mid-nineteenth century with an abusive, habitually drunk father who failed to exploit the wealth he unexpectedly acquired, he is forced to establish his own path unguided and discover his own sexual identity. Intimate friendships with both sexes including with Dan, his friend’s negro slave, are pursued across a background of racial and political tension as the abolitionist cause gains momentum and civil war looms. Jackson is forced to confront his native American roots as circumstances lead him to remain on the move. His journey brings him into contact with an eccentric militant preacher and an emerging literary figure while all the time the unpredictable, unfathomable, glacial qualities of this boy are evolving.