Based on real incidents and characters, the novel is about a dysfunctional family and the rise and fall of a palm wine brewer in the nineteenth century Sri Lanka.

Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901) marks the most decisive period of Sri Lanka's history replacing the innocence of the natives with hypocrisy and puritanism, turning the islanders into diehard fanatics, and when the whole of Europe rejected Victorian values after the monarch's death, Sri Lankans embraced it wholeheartedly. Native politicians who came to power after the British left, exploited this national obsession to suppress the commoners.

This is the true story of those hypocritical colonials with twisted mentality, represented by greedy palm wine brewers intoxicating the whole country to get rich and wield power.