Who is China Blue, and is he a monster? In the early 1980s, teenaged Tess runs away from home to New York City after a fortune-teller dredges up a memory she'd dismissed as a forgotten dream. Tess's Mama struggles to understand the reason for her disappearance as other characters battle with the consequences of US wars in Central America, the mistakes of the surveillance state, as well as with alcoholism and what "truth" means to them. Winner of the Bridge Eight Press Fiction Prize, Catherine Gammon's musical novel is rich with fully-formed characters, generous with real feeling, and intentional with its prose.