 Allie Fox has never been a man to do things by the book. An avid inventor, he is a troubled genuis given to intense moods and an incredible drive. Seemingly on a whim, he shifts his family to the jungles of Central America, telling his children that America "is gone". Determined to create a civilization better than the one he has abandoned, Fox s obsession and mania might pull his family through, or it might pull them apart.