In Charles Demers's darkly comic debut novel, Daniel ? an East Vancouver obsessive-compulsive ? is forced to evaluate his self-absorption against the trials and traumas of others. As he tries to submerge himself in a solitary, Karl Marx-inspired research project in the basement archives of the medical library, Daniel watches his family flounder at the centre of a free-speech fight for a children's book about a same-sex relationship?between turtles.

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