Despair and other stories

by André Alexis

"Emerging from the landscapes and folklore of Trinidad and Canada, Despair reveals a world both recognizable and shockingly strange: in cities driven by fear and violence, quiet inhabitants lead outwardly banal lives that conceal sinister realities. In "The Third Terrace," a failed artist with beautiful hands is driven by a fetish for injuries. In "Metaphysics of Morals," a man wrestles with his capacity for evil while on an excursion to a bakery. "Horse" focuses on the bizarre experiments of a doctor who has rented space in the house of a grieving man, and "The Night Piece" tells the tale of a boy haunted by a story about a soucouyant, a vampire in the guise of an old woman, who has settled nearby."--BOOK JACKET.