Martinique's seductive natural beauty and culture is matched only by its vexed history of colonial violence and racism. Attempting to decipher the strange, alluring mixture of African and European that is Creole, the author of Fatheralong and his French traveling companion develop a powerful attraction to one another, which they find at once threatened and elevated by a third party—the island itself. A rich intersection of place, history, and the intricacies of human relations, John Edgar Wideman's narrative is a vivid account of the Creole experience.