This second work from critically acclaimed Quebec novelist Dominique Fortier, whose debut was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award in both French and English, is an enthralling shell-game of a novel. Composed of three stories linked by theme and image, it brings alive a captivating cast of characters both historical and fictional. For lovers of boldly original literary fiction such as David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda, and Michael Cunningham's The Hours.

In Wonder past and present, science and emotion, speak to each other to create a brilliant whole from three distinct parts. Readers are swept from a devastating volcanic eruption in 1902 to today's Montreal by way of a scientific love story in Victorian England. Along the way we follow Baptiste Cyparis, "The Man who Lived Through Doomsday," who traveled the length and breadth of the United States with Barnum & Bailey's circus, and meet Edward Love, the mathematician who discovered the mysterious waves that shake the earth. This luminous novel confirms Fortier as both a first-rate storyteller and as a master stylist.