Despite misgivings about bringing his young daughter, Taylor, to a village in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea, biologist Peter Campbell feels certain that, in addition to providing data for his Ph.D. dissertation, the trip will revitalize his life and his marriage to his wife, June. But once settled in the village of Abini, Peter and June quickly find that what seemed important in America is meaningless in the rain forest.

Taylor begins to spend her days among the villagers and eventually their daughter seems a stranger to them, returning home at night covered in mud and flowers, full of Abini fairy tales and songs. Under the pressures of existence in an alien culture, the ties that bind the Campbells together begin to come undone, and the dark undercurrents of their feelings for one another rise inexorably to the surface.