At times a comedy of terrors, pitting the severe pogrom pain of one side of our narrator's family against the other's imagined holocaust horrors in a contest of who suffered more, the consequences are deadly serious: when long-ago traumas trigger ones even more devastating for our protagonist, his fantastic schemes of vengeance and gallows humor can barely conceal his mad despair. Weaving tales of comic misfortune and heartbreaking tragedy, this is part detective story, part probe into one family's edifice of unhappiness. From past to present, Odessa to Sarajevo to Montreal, New York, Hollywood and Gaza, our storyteller straddles the tightrope between laughter and tears, between succumbing to tragedy and finding ways to transcend it.

Raphael Burdman, author of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award-winning TETE-A-TETE published and produced in English, French, Flemish and German in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, has written for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Film Board, Caravan Stage, Los Angeles Actors Theater and independent film companies. He's also produced and directed documentary film and video in the U.S. and Canada and taught at the City University of New York as well as Douglas College in British Columbia. Born in Montreal, he now lives in Victoria.