A lost diary, a hidden jungle tribe, and an immortal trickster from another world collide in this novel about the secret history of genius. When a young Australian journalist meets Drew-a centuries old, red skinned being who has shaped human civilisation by injecting 'butterfly juice' into select prodigies-he's drawn into a dazzling, unsettling tour of the world's greatest minds. Shakespeare, Newton, Mozart, Beethoven, Blake, Jane Austen, Van Gogh, Turing: their brilliance, triumphs, and tragedies unfold as part of a vast alien experiment.