Coming-of-age novel. Ironic reflection on a troubled youth in Ravels, a godforsaken Flemish border town in which Van Laerhoven grew up. The main character is a 16-year-old, involved in a sultry relationship with a married woman twice his age who loves Dante. He has more respectable feelings for ‘Copper Gaby’ the girl next door, but she’s beyond his reach. When he witnesses Gaby’s mentally handicapped brother being tortured, the situation begins to get out of hand