NATIONAL BESTSELLER "An absolutely unforgettable novel."-Ian Williams

A masterwork from one of the country's most critically acclaimed and beloved writers that grapples with male violence, sexual abuse, and madness. Complusively readable and heartstopping.

Wade Jackson, a young man from a Newfoundland outport, wants to be a writer. In the university library in St. John's, where he goes every day to absorb the great books of the world, he en-counters the fascinating, South African-born Rachel van Hout, and soon they are lovers.
Rachel is the youngest of four van Hout daugh-ters, each in their own way a wounded soul. The old-est, Gloria, has a string of broken marriages behind her. Carmen is addicted to every drug her Afrikaner dealer husband can lay his hands on. Betha-ny, the most sardonic of the sisters, is fighting a los-ing battle with anorexia. And then there is Rachel, who reads The Diary of Anne Frank obsessively, and diarizes her days in a secret language of her own invention, writing to the point of breakdown and beyond-an obsession that has deeper and more dis-turbing roots than Wade could ever have imagined.
Confronting the central mystery of his character Rachel's life-and his own-Wayne Johnston has created a brilliant and searing tour de force that pulls the reader toward a conclusion both inevitable and impossible to fore-see.