In STREAM, set in the early 1970s, orphaned oil roughneck Jake Ries flees after killing unintentionally a murderous white supremacist cook on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico, who mistakes him for a Jew. Graduate student Karl Appel meets Jake in Oxford. Karl is fed up with his life and with academia. Together they jump on a plane and explore Ethiopia by thumb. Their travels bring them to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Congo, and Tanzania. And along the way they pick up Howard (South African), Beatrice (German), and Swee’Pea (Ugandan). As this small, international and multiracial band penetrates further into the interior, they increasingly become embroiled in local politics, up to the limit of human endurance.