Lorentz's parents send them to live with their wealthy grand aunt, Margaret. The agreement was sealed, at least as far as Aunt Margaret is concerned, on the condition that she, and only she can make decisions relating to the children's upbringing. On top of that, Peer and Merle, the impoverished parents, must give up any right to ever see the children again.

Lorentz meets his father again in later life. He admires the father and wants to be like him. From that point on, Lorentz’s quest for spiritual enlightenment begins.

Though this is a stand alone novel, the author writes about Peer's earlier life in his earlier book ‘ The Great Hunger’. Johan Bojer (born Johan Kristoffer Hansen) was a popular Norwegian novelist and dramatist. He grew up as a foster child in a poor family living in Rissa near Trondheim, Norway. From an early age he learned the realities of poverty. Bojer principally wrote about the lives of the poor farmers and fishermen, both in his native Norway and among the Norwegian immigrants in the United States. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and is best remembered for his novel 'The Emigrants', a major novel dealing with the motivations and trials of the Norwegians that emigrated to the plains of North Dakota.