“Pain becomes an animal, walking at your side. Pain becomes a home you can carry with you.”

This story is based on the real story of a small French town that was mass poisoned in 1951, the cause remains unknown to this day. 

I don’t know if these thoughts will be coherent as I am still processing this novel. The prose was perfect, the imagery haunting, and the themes unsettling. Mackintosh evokes visceral feelings of abundance and starvation, obsession, desire, envy, temptation, humiliation and longing. 

I gave this 5 stars because the writing alone had me. Definitely would recommend to anymore looking for a short but emotionally heavy read.