Tristan Morgan did not have a typical childhood. As the son of a famous television personality and psychic, he felt valued more as a freak for his father's television show than for himself.

Like many teen-agers, he was intimidated by and resentful of a strong minded parent. But unlike most, he also had to contend with unwanted fame and extreme sensitivity to other people's thoughts. The pressures piled up, until he finally ran away when he was thirteen. Tris spent the next four years in Mexico. There, picking lettuce and living in primitive camps, he could blur his senses with hard work. Even the fact that he knew practically no Spanish helped; it is hard to read someone's thoughts if you do not understand the language they are thinking in! Because all his other problems had been intensified by telepathic overload, Tris felt such...