Tom, hero to his Italian family and friends of New York's Bronx, Marty, his wife, and her eccentric genius of a father, a famous anthropologist, Prof. Maitland, who cannot resist championing lost causes; Ballard, a Negro whose scientific background is at odds with the pull back to the war his people are waging; an ex-Communist, haunted by his personal tragedy. Set against them are the millionaire couple who have granted the right to "the dig", and who show a shallow concern for the findings. a possible lost site of a lost tribe of Glade Indians. And Ira deKay, an utterly surrealist character, whose one aim becomes the acquisition of Tom's remote, beautiful, arrogant wife.