To a Mexican hotel on the edge of the jungle, owned by the lusty widow Maxine Faulk, a tour guide — Lawrence Shannon — brings a bus-load of female tourists. To the same hotel comes Hannah Jelkes, a gentle spinster, with her ninety-year-old poet grandfather. Maxine, who intends to make Shannon her next mate, senses an affinity between him and Hannah.

The atmosphere is hostile, the nearest town squalid and verminous, the sun blazes down like a white bone.

It is Tennessee Williams at his best, showing unaccustomed gentleness and compassion.