There are three epigraphs on Page i. One is from Saint Thomas Aquinas and says, “In someways man is all things.” The second epigraph is from Robert Hayden’s poem about the Amistad mutiny, “Middle Passage.” The quote from the poem references the idea of a slave ship that becomes a ghost ship. The third epigraph is from the Upanishads. It says, “Who sees variety and not the Unity wanders on from death to death.”

The initial page of the novel labels it as a ship’s log for the slaver Republic out of New Orleans.

Rutherford Calhoun, the protagonist, explains how he comes to be aboard the Republic. He blames his predicament on owing too much money to his debtors and Isadora Bailey, a prim schoolteacher who tries to trap him into marriage by agreeing to pay his debts to his debtor, black crime lord Papa Zeringue.

According to Rutherford, New Orleans is such an extravagant city that he knew when he arrived there in 1829 after having been freed by his master in Illinois that it was the city for him.