Seven years after the publication of La Mer de la Tranquillité, here is a new version that has been revised and expanded by the author. These 10 extremely diverse stories have changed shape. Touched by grace or felled by the violence of fate, humans run after happiness or hope for a peaceful death. There is a touch of genius in the unspoken violence that is drawn from the silence so skillfully. In Sylvain Trudel’s stories, erotic magazines have theological qualities, immolated cats become one with meteorites, teen lovers ignore harelips, prophets announce the Age of the Pig while leering at prostitutes, war is drowned out in Scotch and Holy Water from Lourdes, old men dwell on dark thoughts under their skunk-fur hats, and a man kills his wife but spares his son, who is hiding under a girl’s skirt.

These 10 worrisome tales are as deep as a well; they masterfully intertwine tragedy and absurdity, chimera and disaster, memory and anxiety.