For many years, Alice Walker has been known for her outspoken positions against racism, sexism, and colonialism. Now, she takes her crusade into the midst of her fiction, as her protagonist (greatly resembling herself) sheds the burdens and blessings of her past to come to terms with an actuality heightened by the transcendental images of magical realism. To be purified, she must go down two rivers. First, there's the Colorado, where she takes an all-female white-water rafting trip which makes her decide to pursue celibacy. Then, there's the Amazon, where she purges her past using yage, a hallucinogenic herb which brings her closer to the World-Grandmother-Spirit. At last, she reaches a place of love and wholeness.