This book is about memory -- memory as a poetic form through which refractions of loss, recovery, discovery and identity form an imaginative reshaping of the past. In raw brushstrokes, Robinson records the slow cascade of events and characters slipping through the thin membrane of experience, shaping our histories. At the same time, he experiments with style and form in a wonderfully sinuous writing. With this, his first book, Robinson makes a staggering debut on the North American literary stage.