Nine stories, disturbing and profound as the water in a well. A blend of the eccentric and the tragic, mad dreams and disaster, memory and anguish. Man, ambiguous, shows us his nature in tones that range from hostile to indulgent and include amorous daydreams and murderous impulses. Individuals touched by grace or devastated by the violence of fate pursue a happy life and hope for a peaceful death, while the world that was born one Epiphany morning beneath a moon the colour of bone, glides like a slave ship towards darkness where we can see only the bare remains of the ultimate slaughter. There is genius in this narrative violence that does not speak its name, that the author’s extreme mastery snatches from silence. The despair, the terrifying lucidity that emanate from this book is an arresting rendition of the futility of religious dogma, and our personal demons. After his stunning novel Mercury Under My Tongue, Sylvain Trudel presents here equally dazzling stories in which imagination, erudition and emotion make up a disturbing bouquet.