Following the death of his mother, Lula Pace Fortune Ripley, Pace decides to close his construction business and leave his home in New Orleans to undertake an unorthodox religious pilgrimage. Intrigued by the Up-Down, a mystical fifth direction mythologised by ancient cultures, Pace sets out on a search for the centre of consciousness. Pace's voyage is a sweeping, voracious human tale that takes no prisoners, witnesses extreme brutalities and expresses a childlike amazement. Here the route goes across America, but the geography he is charting is always first and foremost unchartable.