"In a Toronto library, home to the mad and the marginalized, notes appear, written by someone who believes he is Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester from Verdis opera. Convinced that the young librarian, Miriam, is his daughter, he promises to protect her from grief. Little does he know how much loss she has already experienced; or does he? The novel depicts the tensions between private and public storytelling, the subtle dynamics of a socially exposed workplace, and invites the reader to be astonished by the circumstances its characters confront"