In tiny Icamole, almost deserted village in Mexico’s desert north, the librarian, Lucio, is also the village’s only reader. Though it has not rained for a year in Icamole, when Lucio’s son Remigio draws the body of a thirteen-year-old girl from his well, floodgates open on dark possibility. Strangely enamored of the dead girl’s beauty and fearing implication, Remigio turns desperately to his father. Persuading his son to bury the body, Lucio baptizes the girl Babette, after the heroine of a favorite novel. Is Lucio the keeper of too many stories? As police begin to investigate, has he lost his footing? Or do revelation and resolution lie with other characters and plots from his library? Toscana displays brilliant mastery of the novel—in all its elements—as Lucio keeps every last reader guessing.Praise for David Toscana’s earlier work“Deserves to join the ranks of the great Latin American authors Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Amado” —New York Times Book Review“Introduces American readers to a gifted writer who seems poised to inherit the postmodernist mantle of Carlos Fuentes.” —Kirkus Reviews