From the author of Silence Once Begun—one of our most audacious and original
writers—a beguiling new novel about a man starting over at the most basic level,
and the strange woman who insinuates herself into his life and memory.
A man and a woman have moved into a small house in a small village. The woman is
an "examiner," the man, her "claimant." The examiner is both doctor and guide,
charged with teaching the claimant a series of simple functions: this is a
chair, this is a fork, this is how you meet people. She makes notes in her
journal about his progress: he is showing