Beyond the Island recreates the Galapagos Islands as a paradise poised between destruction and redemption, its inhabitants as varied as an Elizabethan pirate, an expert on the prickly pear, and a baker infatuated with a vanished baroness. By turns hilarious and troubling, Yanez Cossio's ultimately generous treatment of small town self-importance and personal ambition underscores the violence born of prejudice and intolerance and finally discovers an unexpected path to renewal.