Dorrigo Evans is a child in Australia when the novel begins. He is raised in an era where men are not supposed to cry. As a teenager, he enlists in the war and ships out shortly after a summer-long affair with a woman named Amy, who will be an obsession for most of his life. In the POW camp, he is forced to serve as a doctor and a leader over the other men, who respect him and his judgment, despite his disregard for himself. Dorrigo makes choices that look altruistic to the men, but he is always aware that he does so in order to try to become the persona they have already formed of him. After the war, he marries a woman named Ella, but continues to have a string of affairs during his entire married life.

Dorrigo is always lonely and feels that his life has no meaning, except for his brief time with Amy. He compares himself to Sisyphus and love to another form of never-ending hell. These feelings worsen when he returns from the war and understands that the constant death of war gave his life the most meaning it had ever had. He becomes a celebrity and a famous surgeon, the subject of documentaries and biographies, but he never grows comfortable with himself.