Joe Kerwin was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1932. He was educated as a Catholic Christian and learned about World War II growing up. He trained as a physician, Naval Aviator, and an astronaut, and in 1973 was privileged to see the Earth from space, two hundred fifty miles up – the world glorious, his birthplace small and dear. He wondered how our strange capacity for both heroic and villainous behavior came to be and wrote this novel about the troubles and adventures of humans ten thousand years ago, a thousand summers since the tragedy of the Garden of Eden.