Fergus MacRoich

It's the spring of 1940 and Arthur Comte is headed home from Paris, where he was working as a thief. He is in full rebellion against the life he was raised to live, one in which men labor in the mines until they sweat coal dust. He plunges back into Binche, Belgium, in all its complexity-his family life with his mother, father, and siblings; the various women he has been involved with and who still love him; his ongoing fight with Lumière, the village priest and an anti-Semite; his uncle and godfather Oscar who has more than a touch of the supernatural about him.
In Nazi-occupied Belgium food is scarce, life is harsh, resistance fighters are hung, and yet life strangely has the coherence and logic of a fairy tale. Evading death at every turn, Arthur is tutored in the meaning of life. The Casanova of Binche has incidents dire and zany, and it is populated by characters of unusual depth, complexity, and pathos. At its heart the great character of Arthur-fully alive, constantly on the move, always curious, a dreamer, a lover, a devil and a saint.