The book follows the career of Hugh Paret from youth to manhood, and how his profession as a corporation lawyer gradually changes his values.The title is a reference to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where Luke 15:13 (KJV) provides that the son went "into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living."The book received positive reviews and was the second best-selling novel in the United States in 1915.