On Argentina's pampas in 1872, China—the barely-mentioned wife of the gaucho Martín Fierro in the national epic—finds herself unexpectedly free when her husband is conscripted. She sets off by covered wagon with Liz, a Scottish settler, later joined by an outlawed gaucho and his cattle, in a journey that rewrites a classic from a woman's point of view.
A slur that lumps all women together under one word loses its grip once you learn that each woman also has a name of her own. Taking up the insult as your own name, and later choosing new names, becomes a way to begin thinking and acting for yourself.
Imperial confidence claims to have built the world and fixed its shape, so its own home sits at the top of the globe. Living on the supposedly lesser land reveals the claim as partial: the local air turns out clearer, and the imperial language slowly gives way to the native ones.
Escaping a forced marriage and everyday violence, people can build a family of their own choosing, made of allies, lovers and even animals, outside what the new nation-state expects. The journey is emotional and utopian as well as physical, a search for a place to live happily and peacefully.
Misery slowly cracks and dries the skin of those born into it, shaping their very bodies, while a creature not yet worn down still shines with the joy of being alive. The narrator holds that this kind of poverty is a lack of ideas more than of anything else. Escape begins when someone sees that another life is even thinkable.