Jesse and Walt have been selected, along with four other local artists, to spend five weeks at a soon-to-be artists' retreat in a former monastery. Their purpose is to create works of art to decorate the place--photographs, sculpture, paintings, murals. It is this last that Jesse is commissioned for, along with the introverted Guy. But as the summer draws to a close and their mural nears completion, Guy has grown increasingly distant and maudlin.

That's all in the past, now, and in the present day, Jesse and Walt are having beers with Guy's sister, who wants to know everything about her brother's last days, up to and including his death, which police have ruled an accident.

It makes me sad to declare this decidedly mediocre, but that's what it is. Written before Hartnett had really settled into the gorgeously poetic style she has now, this is a bit of a mash-up between expository statement and forced metaphor. The subject matter smacks of being written by a 25-year-old who thinks she has a great deal more life experience than she does, and what could be the moving story of tragedy and grief is labored and unengaging. It's not a terrible book, but a fairly forgettable one.

Lastly, the typographer of this edition should be fired: the flashbacks, which comprise more than half the book, are set in a san-serif font. San-serifs are great for headlines, posters, billboards--things where you need bold, strong letters at a distance--but are hard to read as long paragraphs on paper. The eye requires a little something to help it break the lines down into separate letters. (This ends my geeky typography lecture. But really, WHO typesets half a book in a san-serif font?) ( )