A dense but rewarding read. The narrative is original, the narrator often amusing and very, very clever, though in emotional pain. Tells the story of a young girl growing up in an unnamed city in (we assume) Northern Ireland at the height of its political troubles. She escapes by burying herself in lit classics, but her quiet existence is soon broken when "Milkman", a middle-aged, feared "renouncer of the state", sets his sights on her.