James Kilgo's travelogue of the safari he took late in his life to Zambia's Luangwa River Valley is suffused with his keen awareness of Africa's complexities and contradictions. As Kilgo reflects on the swirl of customs and beliefs around him, he measures what he has learned firsthand about Africa against his readings of the literary greats who came before him, including explorer and missionary David Livingstone, writers Ernest Hemingway and Isak Dinesen, and environmentalists Mark and Delia Owens.