This is the story of a Khmu boy growing up in the forests of northern Laos at a time of great change, from subsistence farming to modern urban life, from the Vietnam conflict to its painful aftermath, from the mysteries of Animism to the rigour of Buddhism. A story replete with refugees, shamans, monks and the spirits of the past. It is also the story of a family trying to survive in the face of alcoholism, starvation, scapegoating and the curse of unexplained deaths in a world before modern medicine.