The euphoric idealism of grassroots reform and the tragic reality of revolutionary failure are at the centre of this speculative novel, which opens with a real historical event: on October 2, 1968, the Mexican police fired into a crowd of demonstrating students, killing more than 200 and wounding hundreds more. Two years later, a journalist and participant in the fateful events lies recovering in the hospital from a knife wound. His fevered imagination leads him in the collection of facts and memories of the movement and its assassination.