It all begins when a novelist named Amlie Nothomb receives a letter from one of her readers, a soldier from the United States, Melvin Mapple, who writes to her from Iraq. Mapple suffers from a disease that is common among soldiers, a suffering that leaves the reader in a state of shock, captivating them and throwing them into a mind blowing story in which the absolute protagonist is the body. Once again the sharp prose of this writer breaks the rules, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat right up until the end.