Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution.
Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant.
When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair.
But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America?
