Where Time Begins

It's 1976 and Shelley Ilillouette unemployed and without prospects has never heard of the Kingdom of Tonga>--but when an artist offers her a job in this South Pacific kingdom she takes it. <p/>She arrives in Tonga to discover that her employer has vanished. Alone in a bewildering world where ancient Polynesia mingles with missionaries Peace Corps and yacht dwellers she is adopted by Foeata a genial Tongan who decides that a <i>mafu</i>--a sweetheart--will solve Shelley's problems. Foeata favors the Peace Corps doctor Skip but he is smitten with Lily a mysterious half-Tongan actress. Then Shelley's first and only lover Jackson follows her to the islands and life only get more complicated. <p/>When Lily goes missing too and Jackson's visit proves disastrous Shelley has to admit that she has not escaped from anything; she has just brought all the confusion of life with her. <p/>Why Foeata wonders are Americans so bad at love? <p/>Amidst encounters with sharks and one octopus (meetings far less harrowing than those she has with missionaries and ex-lovers over the course of her adventure) Shelley untangles a web of stories reaching back decades leading her to conclude that Tonga may indeed be what its king has proclaimed: the place where time begins.