No starling

In this work, the author provides a balance of the spiritual and political. Although richly peopled with figures from this and parallel worlds--Simone Weil, Verlaine, Nabokov, Eurydice, "the new boys" working in the morgue, and others--this book moves beyond a reliance on the dramatic resonance of individual characters. Its vision is deeper, its focus both singular and communal: the self on its journey through the world and our responsibilities as a people for the precarious state of that world.