From the emotional jungle of a dysfunctional family unit, Adam Cain rises through determined self-survival to discover that lovein his caseis a form of delayed gratification. Through harsh twists on his stormy path, his life is formed by what appears to him a hostile environment where he has to fight for his very breath and where a kind word is as rare as an elephants teeth. He lives much of the time in an atmosphere of thwarted love, where it is more of a pale fire than the wondrous heat he sought. At the end of his tunnel, there is no light but murder. Yet he is hell-bent on finding his place in the sunand he does. Briefly.