A sailor with the half-ironic name of Hiro, the mixed-race son of a Japanese woman and an American hippie, is persecuted at home in Japan as a "butter-stinker." In an attempt to improve his life, he jumps ship and swims to Georgia, where he hopes to find acceptance. Instead, he encounters snakes, rednecks, and the mad residents of an artist's colony. And before long the US Immigration Service is after him. A climax in the Okeefenokee Swamp seals the hapless Hiro's dubious fate. T.C. Boyle's fourth novel is a black comedy, and a uniquely American tragedy.