The Arch-Satirist

“I’m going to take everything in life that’s worth having,” Leo Ricossia vows—then breaks into a terrible cough. Across the dim studio, Gerald Amherst watches the nineteen-year-old poet’s fierce appetite for pleasure collide with a body already failing him.

In Montreal, where society has shut its doors to Leo, the artist Gerald still welcomes him into his studio. There, over Scotch and cigarettes, the two men circle a riddle: how can a young man whose poems seem fevered and corrupt write prose that is clean, witty, and bright? Leo claims to have a dozen souls; Gerald suspects a gifted, self-destructive boy is being carried toward an early grave by forces he can’t command. And when Leo turns his mischievous attention to Miss Thayer, Gerald’s patience gives way. Which of Leo’s many selves will speak next—and what will it cost them?

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