A political and environmental novel, bound to raise eyebrows on both sides of the Pacific. Two finite-numbers mathematicians - a Chinese woman and a Chinese American man - become disillusioned with teaching. She goes to work in China's Three Gorges Dam, he for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. Unknown to each other, they struggle to balance their personal values against the global corporate determinism of dam building. Playing China's boom against the story of the American West, this novel is energetic, lyrical, and funny.