On a ravaged street overlooking a cemetery in a Christian enclave in war-torn 1970s Beirut, we meet Pavlov, the son of a local undertaker. When his father dies suddenly, Pavlov is approached by a member of the mysterious Hellfire Society—an anti-religious sect that arranges secret burial for outcasts denied last rites because of their religion or sexuality. Pavlov agrees to take on his father’s work for the society, and over the course of the novel he becomes a survivor-chronicler of his embattled and faded community at the heart of Lebanon’s civil war.
- ISBN10 0393358224
- ISBN13 9780393358223
- Publish Date 14 July 2020 (first published 28 August 2018)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Paperback
- Pages 304
- Language English