However it is not by 'going native' that Baptist missionary Nathan Price loses his mind but by the refusal to do so. Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May - his four daughters and his wife Oleanna narrate the book. Early on we hear the story of Lot, who "offered his own virgin daughters to the rabble of sinners, to do with as they might, just so they'd forget about God's angels that were visiting and leave them be." We also know early on that one of them will die before the story is told. When we finally meet Brother Fowles we realise that he is a sane and admirable man. It is Nathan Price who is mad and whose madness is smothering his family.
