Set in New Jersey, New York, Boston, Sydney, and an hacienda in a nameless Latin American country, and peopled by a cast of characters such as one rarely encounters in Philippine fiction, the stories in The Big River and Other Stories reflect the cosmopolitan life the author has led since leaving the country in 1979. But with the story that brings the collection to a close, he returns to home grounds and the profession he left behind, a homecoming made more poignant by the sense of doom that hovers over it. [Publisher's blurb]