Lost in the surf of the South Pacific lies a speck of volcanic rock. Home to thirty-eight islanders - descendants of the Bounty mutineers - Pitcairn has no cars, no crime, no doctor, and no regular contact with the outside world. For two centuries "Fletcher Christian's children," whose culture and language are a bizarre blend of Polynesian and eighteenth-century English, have lived out a unique social experiment.

Each year the islanders are inundated with requests from paradise seekers obsessed by the island's Edenic image, and by the Bounty legend - which has inspired five movies, countless books and articles, a Bounty museum, and Bounty stamps. Almost all visitors are refused. But after two years' persistence and a four-thousand-mile sea voyage aboard a chemical tanker, acclaimed British travel writer and journalist Dea Birkett realized her dream of reaching Pitcairn.

The islanders seemed welcoming and soon wove her into their web of intrigue, decades-old disputes, and thwarted desires. But as she came to understand that being a Pitcairner means more than climbing cliffs and weaving baskets, Birkett saw the darker face of paradise. Pitcairners sacrifice their individuality to the good of the group; and without any way to evade their neighbors' watchful eyes, the islanders have no privacy.

With no means of escape, Birkett discovered that this island paradise had become at last a kind of prison.