In a vivid, tender and uncompromising novel of male violence and destruction, once-in-a-generation writer douard Louis looks back on the life and death of his deeply troubled older brother

douard's brother spends much of his life dreaming. He lives in a poor, working-class world, where he imagines that he will become one of the finest butchers in France, that he will travel, that he will make his fortune, that he will restore cathedrals, that he will earn his father's love.

But his reality allows none of this. There is no way to escape, no one who can show him how, and everything about him - his drinking, his violence, his behaviour with women and with others - condemns him.

At thirty-eight he is found dead on the floor of his small studio apartment. This book is the story of his collapse.