Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 introduces the main character, Jordan Glass. She is a professional photographer specializing in war photography who has recently won the Pulitzer Prize. She is the daughter of Jonathan Glass, himself a war photographer and twice winner of the Pulitzer, who disappeared in Cambodia when Jordan was a girl. Jonathan's last photograph is of a Cambodian soldier pointing his gun at his camera. Jordan Glass feels a close connection to her father, whose body was never found and who is presumed dead. She carries and uses his old Nikon camera.

Jordan Glass makes reference to another death that has "crashed into" her family and deeply affected her, resulting in an eventual collapse and hospitalization. Following this, she decides to stop photographing people and work on a book on photos of weather.

Work on this book takes her to Hong Kong to photograph monsoons...