Margarita Karapanou (1946-2008) was the author of five novels, including Kassandra and the Wolf and The Sleepwalker. Karen Emmerich's translation of Miltos Sachtouris's Poems (1945-1971) was a finalist for National Book Criitics' Circle Award.

The story is simple: a love affair ends badly. A woman and a man marry, then cruelty, infidelity, and divorce. But this novel tells their story twice, from opposing perspectives. Our sympathies are inverted; we don't know whom to trust; the distinction between truth and deception blurs, and then seems simply to dissolve. The novel shifts deftly between endless oppositions: lover and beloved, angel and demon, master and slave, reader and writer. But inevitably both stories must arrive at the point of rien ne va plus : the moment in roulette when all bets are off and you either win or lose--the moment when the game becomes fate. Margarita Karapanou's third novel is an extraordinary experience in fiction: devastating and brave and true.